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HolYhj 

Sorath  Stack' 


PETERS, ENQR8.,BOSTON 


iSp  ^tmntttt  fRwAn 


GALLANT   LITTLE    WALES.    Sketches  of  its 

People,  Places,  and  Customs     Illustrated. 
THE  END  OF  A  SONG.     Illustrated. 
THROUGH  WELSH  DOORWAYS.  Illustrated. 

HOUGHTON  MIFFLIN  COMPANY 
Boston  and  Nbw  York 


Gallant  Little  Wales 


THE   LADIES   OF   LLANGOLLEN 


Gallant  Little  JVales 

Sketches  of  its  People^  Places 
and  Customs 


BY  JEANNETTE  MARKS 


WITH    ILLUSTRATIONS 


BOSTON  AND  NEW  YORK 

HOUGHTON   MIFFLIN  COMPANY 

^z  lllitjer^ilie  '^xzH  CambriUge 

1912 


^'<^° 
^^^-- 


COPYRIGHT     1912,   BV  JKANNETTK   MARKS 
ALL    RIGHTS   RESERVED 

Published  October  iqii 


CALON  WRTH   GALON 


25739'5 


Preface 


As  a  guidebook  this  volume  will  be  found  to 
contain  too  few  unpronounceable  Welsh  place- 
names  to  be  adequate,  but  as  an  introduction  to 
the  North  Welsh  land,  its  customs,  its  village 
life,  its  little  churches,  its  holiday  possibilities,  its 
history  and  associations,  its  folk-lore  and  romance, 
its  music,  its  cottages  and  castles,  Gallant 
Little  Wales  should  be  useful.  It  is  my  inten- 
tion to  follow  this  book  with  a  companion  vol- 
ume on  South  Wales. 

I  wish  to  express  my  debt  to  Mr.  Henry  Black- 
well,  who  has  always  been  quick  to  lend  me 
volumes  from  his  priceless  Welsh  library  and 
who  went  over  some  of  my  manuscript  for  me. 
I  am  under  obligations  also  to  Rev.  Gwilym 
O.  Griffith  of  Carnarvonshire,  North  Wales. 
Thanks,  too,  I  owe  to  Miss  Dorothy  Foster  for 
her  work  upon  the  map  which  appears  as  a  sep- 
arate page  in  this  volume. 

The  English  know  where  beauty  and  comfort, 
good  care,  and  good  Welsh  mutton  are  to  be  had 
for  a  moderate  tariff.  But  long  before  the  Eng- 
lishman went  for  his  vacations  to  these  British 
[  vii  ] 


Preface 

Alps  and  the  American  followed  him,  excursions 
were  made  into  Wales.  The  Roman  spent  a  sum- 
mer holiday  or  so  both  in  North  and  South 
Wales,  and  left  there  his  villas  and  his  fortresses 
and  his  roads.  The  Roman,  having  set  or  fol- 
lowed a  good  example — and  who  shall  say  which 
it  was  ?  —  and  having  with  Roman  certainty  got 
what  he  wanted,  departed,  leaving  the  country 
open  to  other  invaders  who  pillaged  and  plun- 
dered. Nor,  since  that  time,  has  the  country  ever 
been  without  an  invader. 

I,  too,  have  gone  my  wonder-ways  in  Wales, 
plundering  where  I  could.  I,  too,  Celt  and  Celt 
again,  have  followed  its  beauty  and  felt  a  biting 
hunger  for  a  land  which,  once  loved,  can  never  be 
forgotten.  As  did  another  Celt,  William  Morris, 
in  his  poems,  so  in  prose  this  little  book  and  I 
have  wrought  in  an  old  garden,  hoping  to  make 
"  fresh  flowers  spring  up  from  hoarded  seed"  and 
to  bring  back  again  —  "back  to  folk  weary" — 
some  fragrance  of  old  days  and  old  deeds.  Friend- 
liness, solitude,  memories,  beauty  for  the  eye  and 
beauty  for  the  ear,  —  he  who  would  have  one  or 
all  of  these,  let  him  go  and  go  again  to  gallant 
little  Wales.  Jeannette  Marks. 

Attic  Peace,  May  13,  191 2. 


Contents 

I.  Welsh  Wales 3 

II.  A  Village  in  Eryri 17 

III.  Hilltop  Churches 30 

IV.  Dr.  Johnson's   Tour   of   North 

Wales 59 

V.   Welsh  Folk-Lore 86 

VI.   The    City    of    the     Prince    of 

Wales 105 

VII.    The  Eisteddfod 117 

VIII.   Cambrian  Cottages 133 

IX.   Castle    and    Abbeys    in    North 

Wales 155 

Appendix:  Suggestions  for  Some 

Tours 177 


Illustrations 

The  Ladies  of  Llangollen  .     .     Frontispiece 
Conway  Castle .     lo 

From  an  old  print. 

The  Queen's  Tower,  Conway  Castle    .     24 

From  an  engraving  by  Cuitt,  1817. 

The  Great  Hall  at  Conway  Castle  .     32 

From  an  engraving  by  Cuitt. 

St.  Winifred's  Well,  Holyhead     .     .     40 

From  an  engraving  by  Cuitt,  1813. 

The  Eagle  Tower  of  Carnarvon  Castle     52 

From  an  engraving  by  Cuitt. 

Gateway  of  Carnarvon  Castle   ...     66 

From  an  engraving  by  Cuitt. 

A  View  of  Denbigh  Castle     .     .     .     .     80 

From  an  engraving  by  Boy  dell,  1750. 

Ruthin  Castle 92 

From  an  engraving  by  Buck,  1 742. 

The  Compleat  Angler  in  Wales      .     .100 
[xi] 


Illustrations 


The  Tower  of  Dolbadarn  on  Llanberis 
Lake 112 

Llanberis 124 

From  an  old  print. 

Beaumaris       140 

From  a  proof  before  letters  by  Turner. 

A   Welsh   Waterfall    near    Penmaen- 
Mawr 148 

From  an  engraving  by  Boydell,  1750. 

Beddgelert 160 

From  an  old  print. 

The  Summit  of  Snowdon 172 

From  an  old  print. 

Map    ........     Inside  front  cover 


Gallant  Little  Wales 


Gallant  Little  Wales 


Welsh  Wales 

It  is  a  vanished  past  that  haunts  the  imagina- 
tion in  Wales,  so  that  forever  after  in  thoughts 
of  that  country  one  goes  spellbound.  It  is  the 
beautiful  present,  the  cry  of  the  sheep  upon  the 
mountain-sides,  the  church  bells  ringing  from 
their  little  bell-cots  and  sounding  sweetly  in 
valleys  and  on  highland  meadows,  the  very 
flowers  of  the  roadsides,  —  foxglove,  bluebell, 
heather,  — that  keep  one  lingering  in  Wales  or 
draw  one  back  to  that  land  again.  There  are 
little  churches  of  twelfth-century  foundation, 
gray  or  washed  white,  —  their  golden  glowing 
saffron  wash  of  long  ago  unrenewed  by  the 
Welsh  of  to-day.  There  are  little  cottages, 
white  or  yellow  or  pink,  with  their  bright  door- 
sills  of  copper,  their  clean,  shining  flagstones, 
their  latticed  windows,  and  all  the  homely  and 
dignified  tranquillity  within.  There,  towering 
above,  are  bare  rock-strewn  summits  upon  which 

[3] 


Gallant  Little  Wales 


the  yew  still  stands,  and,  by  its  side,  springing 
from  the  tuft  of  grass  which  the  wind  has  not 
swept  away,  grows  the  white  harebell ;  the  yew 
monument  to  a  thousand  years,  the  harebell  a 
fragile  thing  of  yesterday.  And  above  these 
church-crowned  hills  are  mountain  summits, 
gray  and  craggy,  stripped  of  everything  verd- 
ant, places  where  there  are  "shapes  that  haunt 
thought's  wilderness,"  and  suggestions  of  an 
endless,  unending  joumey. 

It  was  Bishop  Baldwin,  I  think,  accom- 
panied on  his  famous  twelfth-century  journey 
through  Cambria  by  Gerald  of  Wales,  who  said, 
getting  his  breath  with  difficulty  as  he  sur- 
mounted a  Welsh  hill,  "The  nightingale  fol- 
lowed wise  counsel  and  never  came  into  Wales." 
Were  this  true,  the  reply  might  be  that  Wales 
has  no  need  of  nightingales,  so  many  and  so 
beautiful  are  the  wind-played  songs  over  the 
rocks,  and  so  incomparably  lovely  are  the  voices 
of  the  Welsh  people  themselves.  In  any  event, 
had  the  nightingales  come  into  Wales,  a  plump 
one  —  as  it  seems  Bishop  Baldwin  himself  must 
have  been  —  would  never  have  remained  long 
in  the  mountain  fastnesses  of  northern  Wales, 
— at  least  not  in  the  neighbourhood  of  Snowdon 
[4] 


Welsh  Wales 


or  Nant  Francon  or  Twll  Ddu, — the  "black 
hole "  of  Wales.  Neither,  if  Bishop  Baldwin 
ever  climbed  to  a  Welsh  mountain-top,  would 
this  princely  prelate  have  liked  the  views  there. 
A  comfortable,  fat  living  in  some  Welsh  com- 
munity like  Valle  Crucis  Abbey,  near  the  river 
Dee,  by  Llangollen,  would  probably  have  been 
far  more  to  his  liking.  Even  now  these  moun- 
tain inns  are  not  of  the  accepted  kind,  but 
merely  a  cromlech  over  which  the  wind  still 
plays  its  devil  tunes,  a  cave  or  the  ridgepole  of 
a  long  sharp  mountain  crest,  broken  by  crags 
down  to  the  very  edge  of  the  sea. 

Wales  is  a  land  of  mountains,  of  little  alpine 
heights  ranged  on  the  western  coast  of  Great 
Britain.  Set  between  plain  and  sea,  full  of  hill 
fastnesses,  its  turbulent  history  is  partly  ex- 
plained by  the  topography  of  Gwalia.  Inde- 
pendence, lack  of  unity, — these  words  summar- 
ize most  of  the  early  history  of  Wales.  To  the 
different  parts  of  Cambria,  alpine  Snowdonia, 
the  pasture  lands  of  Berwyn,  the  moorlands  and 
vast  coal-fields  of  the  south,  came  two  races : 
one  short  and  dark,  the  Iberian ;  the  other  tall 
and  fair,  the  Celtic.  These  are  still  the  two  peo- 
ples of  Wales.    And  after  them  came  Rome; 

[5] 


Gallant  Little  Wales 


but  Rome  is  gone,  has  vanished,  except  for  her 
walls  and  foundations  and  roads,  and  these  dark 
and  fair  races  are  still  there,  mingled,  their  racial 
traits  still  impregnable,  still  intact. 

When  you  add  to  what  might  be  called  the 
natural  and  inherent  difficulties  of  the  neces- 
sary mountain  climbing  in  Wales,  those  of  the 
Welsh  language,  you  have  a  combination  that 
is  beyond  words  to  describe.  Even  the  veriest 
tyro  a-visiting  Wales  will  tell  you  that  the  lan- 
guage defies  all  description  and  the  most  con- 
scientious efforts  to  master  it. 

One  warm  day  we  were  making  a  melancholy 
progress  up  a  mountain-side  when  steps  passed 
swiftly  and  a  voice  said  in  Welsh,  "  Stepping 
upwards?"  The  young  man,  an  itinerant  Welsh 
minister,  was  travelling  in  the  same  direction 
with  us  and  it  did  not  seem  polite  to  say  "Good- 
bye," although  I  could  think  of  no  other  Welsh 
words.  Finally  two  inept  ones  came  to  me, 
"Da  iawn"  (very  good),  and  I  spoke  them. 
But  then,  not  content  to  let  well  enough  alone, 
something  more  had  to  be  said  and  I  kept  on 
repeating  those  words  like  a  parrot.  The  Welsh- 
man looked  around  doubtfully,  as  if  he  wondered 
what  the  "  Very  good  "  was  all  about,  and  I 
[6] 


Welsh  Wales 


heard  him  murmuring  to  himself  and  saw  him 
hasten  upwards  a  little  faster. 

"  Say  something  else/'  my  companion  whis- 
pered. 

"  I  am  going  to  if  you  will  just  give  me  time," 
I  snapped  back. 

But  I  did  n't  say  anything  else;  I  couldn't, 
for  not  another  thing  would  come.  If  any  one 
feels  disposed  to  criticize  an  alien  because  he  is 
unable  to  speak  Welsh,  then  let  him  go  test  its 
difficulties  for  himself,  its  long  words,  its  savage 
consonants,  its  poor  little  vowels  lost  like  some 
bleating  lamb  upon  rocky  mountain-sides.  You 
just  get  it  satisfactorily  settled  in  your  own 
mind  that  "Dad"  means  father, —  very  natural 
and  proper,  —  when  suddenly  you  discover  that 
"Tad "and  "Nhad"and  "Thad"  also  mean 
father  and  are  one  and  the  same  word.  With 
mother  or  "  Mam  "  you  suffer  a  similar  though 
not  the  same  fate.  To  begin  with,  the  Cymric 
alphabet  differs  from  ours:  it  consists  of  thirty- 
one  letters,  some  of  which,  "  mh,"  "  ch,"  "  dd," 
"ff,"  "ng,"  "ngh,"  "11,"  "nh,"  "ph,"  "rh,"  "th," 
never  occur  in  the  English  alphabet  as  letters 
per  se.  Your  honest  grammarian  will  tell  you 
flatly  that  in  the  case  of  "U"  there  is  no  sound 
[7] 


Gallant  Little  Wales 


in  any  language  corresponding  to  it.  Most  like 
it  are  the  Spanish  "11"  and  the  Italian  "gl." 
Then  what  to  do?  Do  as  you  would  have  to 
do  in  rope  skipping:  watch  the  rope,  run  and 
jump  in  if  you  can.  The  "  c  "  is  hard  in  Welsh, 
never  soft  like  "  c  "  in  "  city  " ;  "ch  "  is  like  the 
guttural  German  "ch";  the  "dd"  sometimes 
like  "eth";  "f"like"v";  "ff"  like"f";  "g'* 
is  never  soft  as  in  "giant,"  but  like  "g"  in  "get " ; 
"i,"  both  long  and  short,  as  "  i"  in  "pin"  and 
"  ee  "  in  "  fleet " ;  "  o  "  is  short  like  "  o  "  in  "  got " 
or  long  like  "  o  "  in  "  note  " ;  "  p  "  as  in  English; 
"  s  "  is  like  "  s  "  in  "  sin  "  ;  "  u  "  is  sometimes 
like  "  i "  and  sometimes  not ;  the  "  w  "  is  like 
"u";  "y"  has  two  sounds,  first  like  "u"  in 
"  fur,"  second  like  the  Welsh  "  u."  A  few  words 
will  illustrate  Welsh  pronunciation.  "  Cymru  " 
is  pronounced,  as  nearly  as  one  can  suggest  its 
pronunciation,  as  if  spelled  "Kumree";  "Gwa- 
lia"  as  if"Gooalia";  "Mawddwy"  asif  "Mau- 
thooy  " ;  "  Wnion  "  as  if  "  Oonion  " ;  "  Pwllheli " 
as  if  "  Pooltheli " ;  "Dolgelley  "  as  if  "  Dolgeth- 
ley." 

I  have  had  some  experiences  with  my  "small" 
Welsh  which  I  would  not  exchange  for  those 
of  "  big  "  German  in  the  past,  or  of  any  other 

[8]   . 


Welsh  Wales 


language  in  which  I  have  been  trained  to  read 
or  speak.  I  remember  one  experience  that  hap- 
pened when  we  were  in  search  of  a  certain  little 
church  of  ancient  foundation,  set  upon  a  hill- 
top. In  Wales  there  are  many  of  these  little 
churches  on  the  hilltops,  like  Llanrychwyn  and 
Llangelynin,  and  also  little  churches  by  the  sea, 
like  Llandanwg,  almost  at  the  foot  of  Harlech. 
Within  their  mediseval  lychgates  and  high 
stone  walls  the  dead  are  crowded  close  in  their 
last  sleep.  Sweet  places  are  those  old  churches, 
with  the  yew  standing  sentinel  near  them, 
and  about  them  the  shelter  of  the  valley  or 
the  wide  sweep  of  the  hilltop  view.  This  time 
it  was  a  hilltop  church  for  which  we  were 
searching.  Again  it  was  "Da  lawn"  which 
graced  the  conversation,  but  in  how  different 
a  manner ! 

We  were  in  need  of  tea,  and  at  the  cottage 
next  to  the  church,  the  only  cottage  upon  that 
summit,  I  rapped  with  my  stick  and  said  to  the 
old  woman  who  came,  "Dyma  le  da  i  gael  te" 
(this  is  a  good  place  to  have  tea). 

"  Yiss,"  was  her  reply,  her  face  brightening; 
"Te?" 

"  Yes,"  said  I ;  "  tea  and  bread-and-butter." 

[9] 


Gallant  Little  Wales 


"  Jam  ?  "  asked  she,  remembering  what  I  had 
forgotten. 

"  Yes,"  I  answered. 

She  spread  the  cover  in  the  place  on  the  turf 
to  which  we  pointed  and  smiled  brightly  at  me, 
as  if  she,  too,  appreciated  the  beauty  of  that 
place  with  its  wide  mountain  and  valley  land- 
scape, the  trustful  sheep  browsing  near  me,  and 
down  at  our  feet  the  magnificent  pile  of  Har- 
lech Castle  looking  across  the  wide  flat  marsh 
at  its  feet  and  over  the  sea  toward  the  palace  of 
King  Mark. 

"  Da  iawn  "  (very  good),  said  I  emphatically. 

And  her  answering  smile  told  me  that  we 
understood  each  other,  even  if  we  could  not 
speak  each  other's  language  very  well. 

Changeling  Welsh  words  are  begot  of  elves 
and  fairies.  Even  as  those  words  are  full  of 
poetry,  of  romance,  of  a  wild  emotionalism,  — 
the  "  Scream  of  the  Celt "  it  has  been  called, 
but  in  Wales  it  is  a  subdued  scream,  — so,  still, 
are  the  superstitions  about  fairies  and  elves  liv- 
ing among  these  Welsh  hills  and  valleys.  Child- 
ish tales  they  may  seem  to  you,  if  you  are  for- 
tunate enough  to  be  told  anything  about  them 
at  all  by  the  Welsh  peasants,  who  are  both  sus- 
[  lo] 


H 

C/3 

<: 
o 

o 
u 


■^ 
■^ 


Welsh  Wales 


picious  and  shy  of  the  "  foreigner."  The  tales 
one  may  hear  even  now  in  Wales  are  full  of  a 
haunting  race  life.  The  Welsh  speak  of  the 
fairies  as  the  "little  folk"  or  the  "fair  folk  "  or 
"  family  "  —  "  y  Tylwyth  Teg."  And  well  do 
these  little  creatures  deserve  the  name,  for  they 
are  friendly  in  Wales.  Ghosts  there  are,  too,  and 
the  death  portents,  the  old  hag  of  the  mist  and 
others  that  groan  or  moan  or  sing  or  stamp  with 
their  feet.  And  there  are  "  Corpse  Candles  "  and 
"Goblin  Funerals."  Shakespeare  knew  a  deal 
about  Welsh  folk-lore,  but  where  he  got  it  from 
no  one  has  yet  discovered.  With  Shakespeare 
"  mab  "  meant  a  little  thing,  just  as  in  any  Welsh 
village  to-day  "  mabcath  "  means  a  kitten. 

No  matter  where  I  have  been  I  have  found 
the  Welsh  conscious  of  the  beauty  and  signi- 
ficance of  their  land,  its  legendary  lore,  its  his- 
tory, its  marvellous  natural  attraction.  They 
have  always  been  eager  to  give  me  information 
about  some  landmark,  some  incident  about  which 
I  might  be  inquiring.  Over  their  shop  counters, 
across  the  doorsills  of  the  humblest  of  Welsh 
cottages,  by  some  kitchen  fire  where  the  brass 
tea-kettle  sang  and  glowed  in  the  subdued  light 
of  the  ingle,  they  have  poured  forth  titles  of 


Gallant  Little  Wales 


books  and  data,  — things  for  which  I  was  search- 
ing, or  needed  to  know.  One  old  man,  eighty- 
six  years  old  and  bedridden,  held  my  hand  in 
an  eager,  childish  clasp,  while  he  tried  to  tell  me 
something  about  a  church,  the  poor  tired  mind 
working  like  a  rundown  clock,  the  half-sightless 
eyes  looking  at  me  in  petition  to  help  him  re- 
call the  days  that  had  slipped  so  far  away.  He 
asked  me  about  friends  of  his,  —  people  who 
had  died  before  I  had  thought  of  being  born. 
He  corrected  my  few  words  of  Welsh,  a  ghost 
of  a  smile  about  the  old  mouth,  but  he  could 
not  recollect  what  I  wanted  to  know.  Without 
the  information  I  was  seeking,  I  went  away 
saying  "  Nos  da  "  to  him,  which  was,  indeed, 
good  night. 

When  Dr.  Samuel  Johnson  made  his  mem- 
orable tour  of  Wales,  he  wrote,  "  Wales  is  so 
little  different  from  England  that  it  offers  no- 
thing to  the  speculations  of  the  traveller."  He 
seemed  wholly  oblivious  to  the  strong  racial 
difference  between  Welsh  and  English,  which 
alters  not  only  the  visage  of  the  people,  but 
also  the  visage  of  the  very  country.  He  was  so 
indiflferent  to  the  grandeur  of  Snowdon  scenery 
that,  going  around  the  base  of  that  mountain  of 

[  12] 


Welsh  Wales 


eagles  in  a  chaise,  he  spent  his  time  keeping 
account  of  the  number  of  sheep  for  ''Miss 
Thrale,"  —  his  little  favourite  "Queenie."  I  do 
not  believe  that  Johnson's  disgust  would  have 
been  the  least  appeased  by  knowing  that  in  the 
years  to  come  other  great  people  were  to  go  and 
go  again  to  Wales,  as  to  a  beloved  lap  of  rest : 
Wordsworth,  Shelley,  Kingsley,  Froude,  New- 
man, Huxley,  Tyndall,  Tennyson,  Arnold,  Tom 
Taylor,  John  Bright,  Carmen  Sylva,  and  many 
another.  The  good  Doctor  scorned  Welsh  riv- 
ers, called  them  brooks  and  offered  to  jump 
over  them.  He  would  have  despised  such  a  cot- 
tage kitchen  as  I  have  lingered  in  many  a  time 
impressed  by  its  beautiful  and  dignified  sim- 
plicity. Sweet  places  are  these  old  kitchens,  hos- 
pitable, warm,  cheerful.  Sunlight  or  firelight, 
one  or  the  other,  you  may  have  always  in  them. 
Bright  they  are  with  fuchsias  and  little  gleam- 
ing leaded  window-panes,  with  polished  oak 
and  polished  brass  and  copper,  with  the  shining 
face  of  a  grandfather  clock,  with  pewter,  with 
lustre  pitchers  and  creamers,  with  gleaming  pots 
and  kettles,  and  the  salt  glistening  on  bacons 
and  hams  hanging  from  the  blackened  oak  raft- 
ers. Gay  are  they,  too,  with  the  life  and  laughter 

[  13] 


Gallant  Little  Wales 


of  children,  with  the  good  cheer  of  contented 
older  people,  with  the  purr  of  the  house  cat  and 
the  bubbling  of  the  tea-kettle.  More  homelike, 
more  motherly,  more  charming  old  kitchens,  it 
has  never  been  my  good  fortune  to  see. 

There  was  only  one  thing  in  Wales  which 
profoundly  satisfied  the  great  Doctor  and  that 
was  its  castles,  Harlech  and  Conway,  and  Car- 
narvon Castle  most  of  all.  Almost  every  Welsh 
town  has  its  historical  traditions  of  importance, 
but  Carnarvon,  the  city  of  the  Prince  of  Wales, 
even  more  than  others.  There  Elen,  the  Great 
Welsh  roadmaker,  was  sought  and  won  by  the 
Emperor  Maximus.  Of  that  little  city,  once 
the  Roman  city  of  Segontium,  there  is  a  descrip- 
tion in  the  "  Mabinogion,"  the  classic  of  Welsh 
literature  and  one  of  the  classics  of  the  world. 
The  Roman  Emperor  saw  in  his  dream  but  what 
we  see  now,  a  fair  and  mighty  castle,  rocks,  pre- 
cipices, mountains  of  great  height.  The  Prince 
of  Wales  was  born,  according  to  legend,  in  Car- 
narvon Castle,  and  there  investiture  ceremon- 
ies are  still  held.  But  veracious  history  assures 
us  that  he  was  born  in  the  town,  outside  the 
castle  of  which  he  himself  had  built  the  very 
tower  where  he  was  supposed  to  have  been  born. 

[  H] 


Welsh  Wales 


Tumultuous,  confused,  legendary  is  Welsh  his- 
tory, full  of  the  more  or  less  mythical  deeds 
of  their  great  King  Arthur,  their  brave  Prince 
Llewelyn,  the  fate  that  overtook  the  hopes  and 
ideals  of  this  prince,  their  last  fight  for  inde- 
pendence and  their  loss  of  it ;  their  submission 
to  the  yoke  of  conquerors  and  the  history  of 
English  princes  who  were  put  over  them.  It  is 
a  wild,  sad,  eventful  history  whose  sorrows  and 
tragedies  seem  only  to  have  bitten  all  that  is 
most  Cymric  in  Welsh  Wales  deeper  into 
Welsh  lives  and  hearts,  so  that  to-day,  despite 
all  that  conqueror  or  civilization  can  do,  their 
language,  their  lives,  are  still  separate. 

And  the  Welsh  Eisteddfod,  a  festival  of 
song  and  poetry,  is  a  revelation  of  the  unique 
national  Welsh  spirit.  From  every  hamlet  in 
Wales,  even  those  reached  only  by  Welsh 
ponies,  visitors  travel  on  foot  or  by  train  to 
this  feast  of  song  and  to  witness  the  Gorsedd,  a 
druidical  ceremony  old  as  the  Eye  of  Light 
itself  "  Gallant  little  Wales "  shows  itself  to 
the  least  and  last  participant  in  the  Eisteddfod 
as  Welsh  Wales.  Educationally  this  Eistedd- 
fod ceremony  is  of  great  value  to  Wales,  demo- 
cratic, representative,  instructive  ;  and  nowhere 

[  15] 


Gallant  Little  Wales 


could  the  fact  that  Welsh  educational  ideals 
are  quite  different  from  those  of  England  — 
popular  and  progressive,  with  something  of  the 
so-called  American  spirit  in  them  —  reveal  it- 
self more  completely  than  in  this  assembly  of 
the  people.  Wales  is  essentially  a  democracy 
—  a  democracy  of  song,  a  democracy  of  poetry, 
a  democracy  of  education  and  religion,  and 
the  Eisteddfod  is  the  popular  university  of  the 
people.  To  comprehend  what  is  deepest  and 
best  in  Welsh  Wales  one  must  go  to  the  Eis- 
teddfod and  hear  the  Welsh,  sensitive,  capable 
of  the  "  Hwyl,"  imaginative,  passionate,  fer- 
vidly patriotic,  sing,  — 

HEN   WLAD   FY   NHADAU   (OLD   LAND   OF 
MY   FATHERS) 

"  Old  mountain-built  Cymru,  the  bard's  Paradise, 
The  farm  in  the  cwm,  the  wild  crag  in  the  skies, 
The  river  that  winds,  have  entwined  tenderly 
With  a  love  spell  my  spirit  in  me. 

Chorus :  Land,  Land, 

Too  fondly  I  love  thee,  dear  Land, 
Till  warring  sea  and  shore  be  gone. 
Pray  God  let  the  old  tongue  live  on." 


II 

A  Village  in  Eryri 

**  Curates  mind  the  parish, 
Sweepers  mind  the  court, 
We  *11  away  to  Snowdon, 
For  our  ten  days*  sport.** 

Kingsley^s  Letter  to  Tom  Hughes. 

At  the  centre  of  a  wide  meadow  with  valleys 
running  in  towards  the  centre  from  east  and 
south  and  west  lies  a  little  village  of  North 
Wales.  All  the  cottages  are  gray,  gray  as  the 
stones  of  St.  John's,  but  they  are  of  the  crisp, 
compact  gray  of  slate,  and  not  the  crumbling, 
fretted  stone  of  Oxford.  Occasionally  some  cot- 
tage nestling  to  the  craggy  side  of  one  of  the 
valley  roads  is  whitewashed  with  white  or  pink, 
or  fitted  so  neatly  into  the  jutting  rocks  of  the 
mountain-side  that  only  the  humble  facade,  a 
screen  of  blooming  roses,  is  visible.  White- 
wash, roses,  gleam  of  copper  doorsills,  running 
water,  flash  gaily  in  the  midst  of  the  gray  of 
Beddgelert.  Above  the  houses  is  the  blue  road- 
way of  sky  walled  in  by  craggy  mountain-sum- 
mits, the  sides  of  the  mountains  carpeted  with 

[17] 


Gallant  Little  Wales 


myriad  tufts  of  heather,  lavender  or  purple  or 
pink,  and  in  autumn  with  the  vivid  yellow  of 
the  prickly  gorse.  Bees  desert  tiny  gardens  of 
well-hedged  roses  for  this  wide  principality 
of  bracken  and  heather,  where  around  tufted 
blossoms  they  hum  to  the  tossing  of  some 
stream  casting  itself  down  the  hills.  Up  the 
rocks  clamber  ivy  and  sheep ;  about  the  moist 
edges  of  the  pools  and  over  the  cushions  of 
damp  moss,  black  and  brown  watered-silk 
snails  measure  leisurely  in  well-fed  content; 
and  in  little  terraced  glens  of  thick  sod  and 
along  the  roadways  grow  bluebells  and  colum- 
bine and  foxglove  and  elfin  white  birches.  But 
above  these  troops  of  upland  bluebells  and  slen- 
der, swaying  birches  hang  rocks,  wild,  rugged, 
whipped  bare  even  of  heather.  And  from  the 
rough  spine  of  Craig-y-Llan  stretches  away 
towards  Snowdon  and  Pen-y-Pass,  a  wilderness 
of  naked  rocks,  weird,  jagged,  shining  gray  and 
black  in  utter  desolation. 

At  the  meeting  of  the  Colwyn  and  Gwynen 
rivers,  with  the  hollow  sound  of  rushing  water 
in  its  village  lanes  and  the  tinkling  of  sheep 
bells  scattering  from  the  overhanging  hills,  the 
meadow  strips  lie  beside  the  valley  roads,  deep 
[i8] 


A  Village  in  Eryri 


green  with  abundant  grass  or  yellow  with  grain. 
Life,  however,  has  been  strenuous  in  this  village 
of  fourscore  mountain  huts,  and  many  fathers 
and  sons  have  had  to  labour  to  clear  the  grassy 
fields.  For  these  honest,  independent,  thrifty 
Welshmen,  slate  and  sheep  are  the  chief  means 
of  support.  The  rivers  yield,  too,  a  fair  quantity 
of  salmon  as  pink  as  some  of  the  mountain 
huts,  salmon  weighing  from  one  to  eighteen 
pounds.  In  a  flood,  although  the  torrent  some- 
times reduces  the  number  of  inhabitants,  the 
catch  of  salmon  is  greater,  and  the  villagers  face 
the  delicate  task  of  balancing  an  all-wise  but 
unscrupulous  Providence. 

The  way  to  a  Welshman's  heart,  nevertheless, 
is  not  through  his  stomach;  the  Welsh  think 
but  little  of  what  they  eat.  Before  English  tour- 
ists came  to  the  village  the  inns  of  the  place, 
Ty  Ucha — now  the  Saracen's  Head — and  Ty 
Isaf,  provided  a  bill  of  fare  consisting  of  oat  and 
barley  bread,  ale,  porter,  and  eggs.  English  and 
Americans,  unlike  the  Welsh,  do  not  go  lightly 
on  a  holiday  without  consideration  of  what  there 
will  be  to  eat.  And  our  lodging-table,  set  by  as 
kindly  and  generous  a  hostess  as  three  wanderers 
ever  found,  bore  slender  chickens  whose  pro- 

[  19] 


Gallant  Little  Wales 


portions  suggested  mountain  climbing,  mutton 
tender  as  the  ivy  the  poor  sheep  had  been  nib- 
bling, salmon  trout  fresh  as  the  stream  pouring 
by  the  corner  of  our  cottage,  Glan  Afon,  pound- 
cake filled  with  plums,  and  tawny  mountain 
honey.  And,  too,  there  were  vegetables  for  whose 
mere  names  we  felt  a  careless  indifference.  Even 
the  loaf  of  bread  Baucis  and  Philemon  set  be- 
fore their  wanderers  was  no  better,  I  am  certain, 
than  the  bread  of  Beddgelert,  light,  sweet,  with 
crackly  golden-brown  crust.  Often  have  we  done 
nothing  but  watch — and  joy  enough  it  was — 
the  mammoth  loaves  coming  home  from  the 
village  bakery  across  the  village  bridge,  little 
children  staggering  under  them,  small  boys 
bearing  them  jauntily,  mothers  grasping  them 
firmly  under  one  arm,  a  baby  tucked  away  under 
the  other. 

At  the  inns,  of  which  the  Royal  Goat  is  most 
pretentious, — it  has  a  piano,  —  there  is  much 
quiet  holiday  life  led  by  quiet  holiday  people. 
The  simple  folk  who  come  to  stay  are  for  the 
most  part  the  Welsh  people  themselves,  for 
whom  Beddgelert  is  in  the  nature  of  a  shrine,  a 
place  canonized  by  the  brave  deed  of  one  of 
their  own  Welsh  greyhounds,  Prince  Llewelyn's 

[  20  ] 


A  Village  in  Eryri 


Gelert.  The  visitors  who  travel  through  the 
valley  during  the  holiday  month  of  August  are 
English  and  Welsh  tourists  on  the  coaches  driv- 
ing over  Llanberis  Pass,  said  to  be  the  highest 
coach  drive  in  the  world,  and  going  to  Car- 
narvon, the  ancient  Roman  city  of  Segontium, 
fourteen  miles  distant  from  Beddgelert. 

In  the  last  hundred  years  the  village  has  har- 
boured many  a  distinguished  man  who,  giving 
thanks  for  his  undiscovered  seclusion,  has  come 
and  gone  unknown.  Wordsworth  came  there 
with  his  friend,  Robert  Jones;  Shelley,  living  at 
Tan  yr  AUt,  a  few  miles  out  of  Beddgelert,  must 
often  have  passed  through  its  lanes,  his  ragged 
brown  hair  whipped  by  the  valley  wind,  his 
great  eyes  blue  as  the  roadway  of  sky  overhead; 
Kingsley,  with  a  quick  smile  for  the  jolly  little 
urchins  perched  venturesomely  on  the  sharp 
slate  coping  of  the  bridge,  Frederic  Temple, 
Derwent  Coleridge,  J.  A.  Froude,  Professor  F. 
W.  Newman,  Huxley,  Tyndall,  all  found  holi- 
day rest  in  this  quiet  meadow  sheltered  by  its 
rampart  of  mountains.  Gladstone  came  there, 
too.  A  village  cow  with  an  eye  for  distinction 
endeavoured  to  hook  the  Prime  Minister  and 
had  afterwards  the  satisfaction  of  being  sold  for 


Gallant  Little  Wales 


a  large  sum  of  money.  There  also  in  the  valley- 
was  born  "  Golden  Rule"  Jones,  of  Toledo  fame, 
a  good  man,  and  but  one  of  many  good  men 
who  have  gone  forth  from  this  fastness  of  peace 
to  dream  ever  afterwards  of  a  return  to  its  gray 
houses,  its  streams,  its  hills  and  heather  and 
wilderness  of  crags. 

Ty  Isaf  and  Ty  Ucha  are  the  oldest  inns  of 
the  village.  Ty  Isaf  is  at  the  entrance  of  the 
lane  leading  to  the  church,  and  it  was  there,  not 
so  many  years  ago,  that  the  minister  was  still 
expected  to  drink  a  cup  or  two  of  ale  before 
entering  the  pulpit  or  fail  in  due  prelusive 
inspiration.  At  Ty  Isaf  was  kept  the  Large 
Pint  of  Beddgelert  ("  Hen  Beint  Mawr  Bedd 
Gelert "),  a  pewter  mug  which  held  two  quarts 
of  old  beer.  Any  man  who  could  drink  this 
quantity  at  a  breath  might  charge  the  amount 
to  the  lord  of  the  manor ;  if  he  failed,  he  paid 
for  it  himself  But  so  often  was  the  heroic  deed 
accomplished  by  capacious  Welshmen  that  it 
is  recorded  the  tenants  paid  but  half  their  rent 
in  money.  It  would  be  interesting  to  know  for 
how  many  goblins,  fairies,  "  Lantern  Jacks," 
flickering  "  Candles  of  the  Dead,"  Hen  Beint 
Mawrwas  responsible !  Now  over  every  little 

[  22  ] 


A  Village  in  Eryri 


inn  is  the  sign  "  Temperance,"  for  Welsh  reviv- 
als have  played  havoc  with  these  noble  drink- 
ing-feats.  One  signboard,  I  can  never  pass  with- 
out a  smile,  has  gone  so  far  as  rather  to  insist 
upon  the  temperance  issue  in  the  words,  "Rooms 
and  Temperance."  Incidentally,  the  rector  of 
the  Episcopal  Church  has  given  up  his  potation, 
and  next  door  the  Welsh  Calvinistic  Methodist 
minister,  also  unsupported  by  home-brewed 
beer,  wrestles  with  his  flock.  Beddgelert  Sab- 
bath-keeping has  all  the  force  of  an  unbroken 
tradition.  A  gentleman  riding  a-hunting  on 
Sunday  was  confronted  by  an  old  woman  who 
shook  her  Welsh  Bible  at  him  and  showered 
vindictive  Welsh  Fs  on  his  worldly  head.  Nor 
was  our  own  experience  much  happier.  Our 
drinking-water  was  fetched  from  Ty  Ucha, 
and  we  had  good  reason  to  believe  it  was  re- 
sponsible for  wretched  feelings.  One  Sunday 
morning  I  consulted  our  Welsh  hostess,  ex- 
plained to  her  what  we  thought  of  the  water, 
and  asked  whether  we  might  have  some  brought 
from  another  spring.  We  were  told  that  it 
could  not  be  drawn  on  the  Sabbath,  but  would 
be  brought  to  us  on  Monday  morning !  In 
every  cottage  there  is  a  mammoth  Welsh  Bible, 

In  ] 


Gallant  Little  Wales 


and  groups  of  smaller  Bibles  both  Welsh  and 
English.  We  went  into  one  deserted  mountain 
hut  to  take  pictures  of  the  interior;  inside, 
together  with  an  old  trunk,  a  rusty  fluting-iron, 
kettles,  pans,  a  portion  of  the  woven  couch 
strung  over  the  wide  fireplace,  and  old  clothes, 
we  found  two  Welsh  Bibles,  one  English  Bible, 
and  a  torn  portion  of  "  Pilgrim's  Progress." 

Indeed,  the  religious  spirit  of  the  place  is  a 
tradition  but  infrequently  broken  in  the  past 
thousand  years.  Edward  I  had  burned  the  priory 
(now  St.  Mary's  Church),  which  was  erected 
as  a  hospitium  in  connexion  with  a  small  chapel 
and  schoolhouse  in  the  second  half  of  the  sixth 
century;  Henry  VIII  endeavoured  to  crush  its 
power,  and  then  in  1830  the  good  villagers 
themselves  entered  upon  the  pious  task  of  re- 
novation. In  order  to  make  the  renovation  as 
thorough  as  possible,  they  tore  down  all  the 
rare  wood-carving,  using  it  for  kindling-wood, 
and  in  some  instances  making  pieces  of  house- 
hold furniture  from  it ;  they  put  in  a  false  ceil- 
ing of  clapboards  hiding  the  fine  Gothic  arch 
of  the  roof;  the  ceiling,  together  with  the  walls, 
they  whitewashed,  and  completed  their  pious 
task  by  boarding  up  several  exquisitely  shaped 


THE    queen's   tower,    CONWAY    CASTLE 

From  an  engraving  by  Cuitty  iSiy 


A  Village  in  Eryri 


lancet  windows.  Fortunately  the  renovation 
has  been  followed  by  a  restoration,  and  now 
the  priory  may  be  seen  in  some  of  its  ancient 
beauty,  with  the  old  yew  tree  spreading  low 
over  the  gravestones  and  the  Gwynen  pouring 
by  its  northern  walls,  singing  the  same  moun- 
tain song  it  sang  when  the  canons  regular  of 
St.  Augustine,  barefooted,  gray-habited,  with 
crucifix  and  rosary,  marched  solemnly  from 
chapel  to  hospitium. 

The  name  Beddgelert,  the  Grave  of  Gelert 
(?),  brings  hundreds  of  Welsh  people  to  see 
this  town  each  year.  It  is  not  an  uncommon 
spectacle  to  see  a  man,  as  he  stands  by  the 
dog's  grave,  brushing  away  tears,  or  a  little 
child  crying  bitterly.  The  story  is  of  Prince 
Llewelyn's  greyhound,  who  saved  his  master's 
baby  by  killing  a  fierce  wolf,  and  then  was  slain 
by  his  master's  sword,  for  the  Prince,  entering, 
saw  the  cradle  overturned  and  the  greyhound's 
mouth  covered  with  blood.  The  name  of  the 
place,  however,  has  nothing  to  do  with  the 
myth  of  Gelert;  the  little  hill  on  which  the 
grave  stands  had  for  hundreds  of  years  been 
called  "  Bryn-y-Bedd,"  the  "  Hill  of  the  Grave," 
a  mound  where  the   Irish   chief  Celert,  a  far 

[^5] 


Gallant  Little  Wales 


earlier  hero  than  the  dog,  may  have  been 
buried.  There  are  parallels  in  other  folk-lore 
for  this  tale,  and  one  even  in  the  Sanscrit  has 
been  discovered  in  which,  in  place  of  Northern 
wolf,  a  snake  is  the  evil  agent.  There  is  an 
unmistakable  twinkle  in  a  Beddgelert  eye  when- 
ever the  story  is  told.  Alas !  that  the  greyhound 
buried  there  was  not  presented  to  Prince  Llew- 
elyn by  his  father-in-law.  King  John,  in  the 
year  1205,  but,  the  petted  possession  of  two 
Beddgelert  spinsters,  was  presented  by  them  at 
the  beginning  of  the  nineteenth  century  to  the 
sagacious  David  Prichard,  the  first  owner  of  the 
Royal  Goat  Hotel,  and  promptly  interred  by 
him  in  the  famous  mound. 

Every  one  of  the  three  valley  roads  of  Bedd- 
gelert is  filled  with  incidents  of  Welsh  legend 
and  folk-lore.  Even  in  our  materialistic  age  the 
credulous  spirit  abides  here  in  this  mountain- 
bred  people,  quick,  lively,  romantic.  The  vil- 
lage is  filled  with  lovely  legend  and  quaint  lore ; 
in  the  farmhouses  among  the  hills  heroic  stories 
are  still  told  about  Arthur  and  songs  sung  to 
Welsh  melodies.  There  are  tales  of  ghosts, 
and  of  goblins,  brown  road  goblins,  and  gray 
goblins  of  the  mist;  of  water  sprites  in  the 
[  ^6] 


A  Village  in  Eryri 


mountain  torrents,  now  a  beautiful,  half-naked 
maiden,  now  a  fleshless  old  man ;  of  the  "  Can- 
dle of  the  Dead''  with  its  clear  white  flame;  of 
the  little  red-eyed,  red-eared  "  Hounds  of  Hell" 
flocking  like  sheep  down  some  mountain-path  ; 
of  the  pranks  of  "  Lantern  Jack  *'  on  dark  win- 
ter nights;  of  the  fairies  living  in  the  summer 
among  the  bracken,  in  winter  among  heather 
and  gorse,  coming  out  of  their  haunts  to  dive 
thievishly  into  the  farmers'  pockets,  or  to  steal 
butter  and^ilk  and  cheese  from  the  careful 
housewives.  There  are  stories,  too,  of  amiable, 
kindly  fairies  who  carol  and  dance  nightly. 

Driving  up  from  Tremadoc  past  Tan  yr 
Allt,  where  Shelley  lived  for  a  year,  one  comes 
to  the  bridge  at  the  mouth  of  the  pass.  This 
bridge  is  said  to  have  been  built  by  no  less  a 
person  than  the  Devil,  who  for  his  trouble  got 
nothing  in  toll  but  a  poor  little  dog  that  was 
first  to  scamper  over  it.  Down  the  Nant  Gwynen 
Valley,  a  narrow  river  valley  running  east  out 
of  Beddgelert,  is  Dinas  Emrys,  the  home  of  the 
magician  Merlin  and  at  many  times  the  abiding 
place  of  King  Arthur.  Merlin's  well,  on  the 
very  summit  of  Dinas  Emrys,  is  still  a  discover- 
able well.  There,  too,  surrounding  the  crown 

[27] 


Gallant  Little  Wales 


of  this  singular  hill,  are  traces  and  remains  of 
the  walls  of  an  old  Roman  fortress ;  and  the  en- 
trance over  the  narrow  ridge  to  the  crown  of 
Dinas  Emrys  bears  marks  of  stone  hewn  hun- 
dreds of  years  ago.  Not  more  than  three  miles 
further  in  the  same  valley  is  a  precipitous  pass 
leading  up  towards  Lliwedd  by  Snowdon,  where 
some  legends  say  Arthur  fell  and  lies  buried. 
Up  this  valley  road  over  Pen  y  Pass,  in  a 
wilderness  of  boulders  and  crags  tumbled  hither 
and  thither,  is  an  interesting  specimen  of  crom- 
lech, and  near  by  some  gigantic  rocks  so  fitted 
together  that  they  form  a  hut  in  which  an  old 
woman  is  said  to  have  lived  many,  many  years. 
I  hope  life  was  pleasanter  to  her  during  all 
those  years  than  it  was  for  us  during  even 
the  few  minutes  we  were  within  the  strange 
enclosure. 

The  third  valley  running  out  of  Beddgelert 
is  the  valley  of  the  Colwyn.  This  leads  past 
Moel  Hebog  —  in  a  cave  on  whose  perpendic- 
ular side  Owen  Glendwr  lay  in  hiding  for 
months  —  towards  Carnarvon,  a  city  of  a  castle 
with  casements :  — 

**  Charm'd  magic  casements,  opening  on  the  foam 
Of  perilous  seas,  in  faery  lands  forlorn." 
[28] 


A  Village  in  Eryri 


There  lying  before  one  over  the  summer  sea  is 
the  rim  of  Anglesey,  quiet  in  its  mirage  of 
white  sand  and  the  green  land  stretching  away 
into  gray  distance.  Still  many  portions  of  the 
old  Roman  road  connecting  Segontium  and 
Heriri  Mons  may  be  seen  in  this  valley,  bridle- 
paths the  Welsh  call  "Ffyrdd  Elen,"  "Elen's 
Roads."  Towering  above,  Snowdon  looks  down, 
untroubled,  from  its  splendid  reach,  upon  these 
paths,  from  which,  in  sunshine  and  in  mist, 
Druid  and  Roman,  henchman  of  Edward  and 
John,  prince  and  poet  and  painter,  have  made 
the  steep  ascent  and  seen  swimming  before 
them,  like  the  sea  of  time,  a  hundred  hills; 
beyond,  the  wide  glimmer  of  the  ocean;  and 
heard  rising  through  the  air  the  roar  of  torrent 
and  stream.  Halfway  up  Snowdon  are  the  re- 
mains of  a  druidical  temple.  There,  kneeling  on 
some  of  the  stones,  I  listened  to  the  song  of 
wind  and  sea,  the  Harp  of  Eryri,  and  tried  to 
catch  a  little  of  the  vast  panorama,  which  was, 
somehow,  strangely,  mournfully  human,  hold- 
ing in  sky-line  and  sea-line  dim  shadow  of  the 
hearts  which  had  knelt  here  before  —  the  im- 
memorial worshippers  of  untold  beauty. 


Ill 

Hilltop  Churches 

"Ah,"  said  Bishop  Baldwin,  recovering  his 
breath,  "  the  nightingale  followed  wise  counsel 
and  never  came  into  Wales."  So,  jocund  as  the 
most  unordained,  Baldwin's  holy  company  of 
the  twelfth  century  moved  on  its  way,  gather- 
ing ever  more  and  more  to  it  cloaks  signed  with 
the  crusading  cross  of  red.  To  mind  come  other 
figures  and  to  mind  come  other  pictures  —  wild, 
powerful,  beautiful,  pathetic  —  of  a  past  that  is  a 
thousand  or  two  thousand  years  old.  In  some 
rock-strewn  valley,  bleak  and  barren  as  the  utter- 
most parts  of  the  earth  or  terrible  as  the  valley 
of  the  shadow  of  death,  rises  the  cry  of  human 
sacrifice.  Hundreds  of  years  later,  down  a  road- 
way bordered  then  as  now  with  foxglove  and 
bluebells  and  heather,  rides  a  gallant  company, 
gentle-mannered,  on  pleasure  bent.  Or  by  the 
walls  of  Conway  Castle,  Edward  I  bears  the  body 
of  his  Eleanor  to  its  far  resting-place  in  West- 
minster Abbey,  where  the  stones  are  still  fresh 
from  the  chisels  of  the  builders.  Here  is  "  the 

[30] 


Hilltop  Churches 


unimaginable  touch  of  Time,"  a  Past  that  as  it 
sHps  away  joins  the  mystery  of  a  Future  even 
at  this  instant  in  retreat. 

But  the  traveller  does  not  go  on  foot  week 
after  week  many  scores  of  miles,  with  these 
thoughts  always  present,  like  Christian  with  a 
pack  upon  his  back,  and  meeting  as  did  Christ- 
ian many  difficulties.  True,  a  good  heart  faces 
the  open  road  expecting  many  obstacles,  and 
can  find  its  wonder-ways  even  if  it  loses  a  night's 
rest.  Giraldus  Cambrensis,  on  the  forward  march 
with  the  Bishop  through  Wales,  could  vouch 
for  an  island  in  which  no  one  dies,  for  a  wan- 
dering bell,  for  a  whale  with  three  golden  teeth, 
for  grasshoppers  that  sing  better  when  their  heads 
are  cut  off.  He  tells  the  story  of  a  lad,  Sisillus 
Long  Leg  by  name,  who  suffered  a  violent  per- 
secution from  toads  that  in  the  end  consumed 
the  young  man  to  the  very  bones.  And  like 
most  ecclesiastics,  Giraldus  allows  himself  the 
relaxation  of  a  good  fish  story. 

This  credulity,  charming  as  it  is  and  panacea 
for  the  physical  tedium  of  the  open  road,  is  the 
faculty  of  which  the  pedestrian  of  to-day  must 
strip  himself  No  other  pilgrimages  of  which  I 
know  have  been  made  to  these  little  churches, 

[31  ] 


Gallant  Little  Wales 


except  by  Mr.  Herbert  North,  of  Wales, —  who 
has  studied  the  old  churches  of  Arllechwyd 
simply,  and  to  whose  architectural  insight  I 
am  greatly  indebted,  —  and  by  myself  During 
many  weeks  my  journey  took  me  from  hillside 
to  hillside  and  mountain-top  to  mountain-top, 
studying  these  ancient  foundations.  My  work 
was  grounded  upon  incredulity;  everything 
was  recorded,  nothing  concluded.  As  a  motto 
the  remark  of  the  only  thoughtful  sexton  I  have 
met  out  of  literature  might  have  been  taken. 
Contemplating  an  old  stone  at  St.  Mary,  Con- 
way, inscribed  "Y  1066,"  he  said,  "Hit  wants 
a  wise  'ead  to  find  hit  out."  At  Gyffin  beyond 
Conway  we  pointed  to  one  object  after  another 
in  the  church  with  the  single  question  —  an 
American  question:  — 

"How  old  is  it?" 

"It's  very  old,  mum,"  came  the  reply. 

"How  old?" 

"  Oh,  very  old,  mum,"  in  an  impressive  voice. 

Having  tested  barrel  vault,  paintings,  chan- 
cel, windows,  rood  screen,  roof,  walls,  doors,  in 
this  fashion,  we  had  worked  ourselves  out  of 
the  church,  so  to  speak,  and  I  pointed  up  to  a 
shiny  tin  rooster  crowing  upon  the  bell-cot. 

[32  ] 


THE   GREAT   HALL   AT   CONWAY    CASTLE 

From  an  engru'ving  by  Cuttt 


Hilltop  Churches 


"  How  old  is  it,  the  rooster  *?  "  I  said. 

"  Oh,  very  old,  mum,"  came  the  solemn  reply. 

At  another  place  we  were  told  that  the  bell 
swinging  in  the  cot,  and  sounding  sweetly  after 
the  long  journey  uphill,  dated  from  the  fourth 
century.  It  was  useless  to  inform  the  poor  soul 
that  there  were  none  but  hand-bells  then  in  North 
Wales,  and  that  she  was  in  this  case  only  a 
little  matter  of  one  thousand  years  out  of  the 
way.  After  a  mount  up  to  Llangelynin,  taken 
hastily,  and  much  investigation  of  objects  gen- 
uinely ancient,  the  woman  who  had  us  in  thrall 
said,  pointing  to  a  dark  recess  under  a  narrow, 
fixed  pew,  black  as  darkness,  and  not  more  than 
one  foot  from  the  pew  in  front  of  it,  "There 's 
a  very  old  tablet  there,  mum,  my  son  says." 
Perhaps  she  had  calculated  the  discrepancy 
between  the  width  of  the  pew  and  myself;  how- 
ever, I  got  through  to  the  floor,  wiped  off  the 
dust  with  a  handkerchief,  and  out  blinked,  as 
sleepily  as  if  it  were  the  very  Rip  Van  Winkle 
of  stones,  the  young  date  1874!  Wild  steeple 
chases  there  were  in  plenty,  with  minor  fatal- 
ities to  limb  and  courage.  It  is  useless,  when  one 
mountain-top  has  been  achieved,  to  find  that 
after  all  there  is  nothing  left  except  the  incon- 


Gallant  Little  Wales 


siderable  mountain  itself,  —  it  is  useless  then  to 
discover  upon  an  opposite  summit,  whose  peak 
could  be  reached  by  a  well-modulated  voice,  an 
extant  church  of  indubitable  antiquity,  for  to 
meet  with  that  church  would  require  an  all-day's 
walk.  There  was  one  steeple  chase  without  even 
the  comfort  of  another  church  in  view. 

Once  reconciled  to  these  surprises,  for  which 
no  one  can  be  held  accountable,  and  to  the  in- 
effectiveness of  the  sextons  whom  no  one  must 
suppose  responsible,  there  are  no  chances  for 
disappointments  except  such  as  are  self-created. 
The  attendants  in  most  cases  are  women,  and 
wretched  creatures  some  of  them  are.  In  one 
place  a  woman  with  a  goitre,  and  one  eye  gone, 
kept  the  keys.  She  was  admirably  proud  of  her 
son  because  he  did  know  something,  but  as  the 
son  spent  all  his  days  in  a  mine  we  were  not  in 
a  way  to  inherit  his  wisdom.  Another  woman 
was  deaf  and  dumb  and  foolish.  A  lad  who  took 
us  through  a  church  of  considerable  importance, 
if  antiquity  can  make  these  deserted  churches 
important,  was  so  stupid  he  received  a  lecture 
upon  his  ignorance.  His  unanswerable  sectarian 
reply  was  that  he  did  not  belong  to  that  church 
anyway.  We  met  with  some  smart  young  girls 
[34] 


Hilltop   Churches 


who,  with  their  twenty  years  of  wisdom,  were 
above  knowledge  concerning  anything  so  rusty 
and  tumble-down  as  the  church  by  means  of 
which  they  hoped  to  win  sixpences  for  ribbons. 
There  were  two  or  three  apple-cheeked  old 
women  clad  in  caps  and  bobbing  their  curtsies. 
To  one,  a  sweet  old  soul,  I  was  explaining  that 
a  certain  door  could  not  be  very  ancient  and 
have  the  big  nails  it  had  in  it.  "  Uch,"  she  re- 
plied, in  distress.  "  Well,  indeed,  mum,  perhaps 
they  were  put  in  later  to  hold  it  together."  It 
may  be  said,  I  think,  that  the  keys  are  kept  as 
far  away  as  possible,  why  I  cannot  say.  So  is 
the  vicar  kept  as  far  away  as  possible :  even  the 
curates  get  the  habit  and  stay  away  when  they 
can.  As  a  rule,  the  churches  are  not  set  down 
in  the  midst  of  habitable  villages,  but  most  often 
upon  remote  hillsides  or  hilltops.  There  is  an- 
other difficulty  to  be  encountered  also,  in  the 
person  of  the  kindly  individual  who  could  show 
you  what  you  wish,  but  wishes  to  show  you 
something  else.  One  old  woman  —  the  Ancient 
Mariner  himself  could  not  have  been  more 
irresistible  —  detained  us  endlessly  while  she 
searched  for  and  displayed  the  Duchess  of 
Westminster's  photograph. 


Gallant  Litile  Wales 


These  are  some  of  the  troubles  in  a  progress 
otherwise  enchanting ;  once  realized,  it  is  well 
to  forget  them,  together  with  the  feet  that  were 
sometimes  too  weary  to  travel  five  miles  further 
and  the  shoulder  that  ached  under  the  strap. 
With  its  ache  of  all  the  ages  the  dream  of  an- 
cient beauty  has  no  place  in  it  for  an  hour's 
weariness.  As  if  the  riddle  of  existence  could 
be  explained  by  a  wall  rain-washed  and  worn, 
upon  which  grow  lichen,  moss,  rustling  grass, 
and  even  trees,  and  by  lintels  tipping  earthward, 
golden  flowers  blowing  upon  them!  The  eye 
travels  thirstily  from  stone  to  stone,  or  to  some 
peaceful  bell-cot  pointing  the  bare  ridge  of  a 
bleak,  sheep-covered  hill,  or  to  the  far-away  hills 
and  gray  sky  and  solemn,  dreary  places.  Spirit- 
ually it  is  easy  to  understand  why  these  churches 
are  on  the  hills,  and  the  controversy  about  their 
position  seems  a  matter  of  no  further  moment. 
There  are  other  pictures,  too,  of  churches  by 
the  sea,  in  the  main  not  as  old  as  those  upon 
the  mountains,  enclosures  where  even  the  tomb- 
stones are  crowded  together  in  their  last  sleep. 
Beyond  these  churchyards  lies  the  encircling 
shore  with  ever  the  white  lip  of  the  sea  at  its 
edge;   above,  low-lying   regiments   of  clouds 


Hilltop  Churches 


march  Snowdon-wards.  Upon  one  eminence  is 
the  church,  upon  another,  nearer  the  water,  a 
castle,  and  in  the  valley  between  these  crum- 
bling sanctities  of  power  and  spirit  is  the  little 
town,  busy  still,  its  roofs  making  a  joyous  show 
of  colour  beneath  the  blue  sky.  Within  these 
churches  by  the  sea  there  is  ever  the  tideless  roar 
of  the  waters  ringing  upon  the  shores,  and  from 
these  church  doorways  the  eye  dreams  upon 
the  castle  wasting  with  the  land  at  its  feet,  or 
the  "llys"  of  King  Mark,  or  upon  the  faint 
blue  rim  of  some  island,  holy  as  the  mother  of 
good  men.  Along  the  road  on  one  side  is  the 
sea;  on  the  other,  green  hills  rise  into  the  blue 
of  the  sky,  their  slopes  a  mosaic  of  gray  sheep 
walls.  And  here  out  of  the  village  at  the  end  of 
a  grass-grown  road,  by  the  sea,  lies  a  little  church, 
around  which  the  sands  have  blown  through  so 
many  centuries  that  the  windows  show  just  the 
caps  looking  like  sleepy  eyes  out  of  the  hud- 
dled graves.  One  minute  time  rolls  like  a  char- 
iot wheel  crushing  all  things,  another  moment 
and  it  is  a  mystic  circle  without  beginning  and 
without  end.  The  graves  upon  the  hillsides, 
young  in  their  hundreds  of  years,  look  down 
upon  the  mounds  of  the  British  undisturbed  in 

[37] 


Gallant  Little  Wales 


a  millennial  repose,  and  upon  a  stone  lying  as 
hands  two  thousand  years  ago  placed  it.  And 
past  the  ears  rush  the  centuries  of  all  eternity, 
as  in  the  travelling  of  a  mighty  wind. 

Seeing  with  the  eye  of  visions  it  is  not  hard 
to  recreate  a  vanished  past,  to  construct  again 
the  primitive  British  church  of  wood  and  wat- 
tle, with  its  beauty  of  oaken  rafter  and  carved 
wood  which  stone  now  encloses.  There  is  still 
an  ancient  wooden  church  in  Greenstead,  Es- 
sex, in  plan  much  like  little  churches  of  North 
Wales,  —  the  walls  six  feet  high  made  of  half 
trees  side  by  side,  the  roof  a  tie  beam,  with 
struts,  less  than  six  feet  from  the  floor.  This 
parallelogram  follows  out  the  double  square  of 
what  was  undoubtedly  the  plan  of  the  ancient 
British  church,  something  that  was  still  geo- 
metrically the  square  sanctuary  with  its  square 
altar  typifying  the  heavenly  Jerusalem.  Bede, 
in  his  "  Ecclesiastical  History,"  speaks  of  "  a 
church  fit  for  an  Episcopal  See ;  which,  how- 
ever, after  the  manner  of  the  Scots,  he  [Finan] 
did  not  erect  of  stone,  but  of  sawn  timber, 
covering  it  with  reeds."  It  is  worth  remember- 
ing that  the  little  churches  being  discussed  are 
unique  examples  of  a  national  type  based,  not 

[38] 


Hilltop  Churches 


upon  the  Roman  basilica,  but  upon  the  Tem- 
ple, with  its  square  Holy  of  Holies,  and  illus- 
trating certain  features ;  a  square  east  end  with 
east  window,  an  altar  concealed  behind  screens, 
and  a  south  door  instead  of  a  western  portal. 
The  wood  and  wattle  churches  have  disap- 
peared, but  upon  the  foundation  lines  have 
arisen  the  present  stone  churches  of  North 
Wales,  dating  back  in  general  to  the  eleventh 
and  twelfth  centuries.  Their  walls  of  stone  are 
daubed  at  the  joints  with  mud,  similar  to  the 
treatment  the  wattle  buildings  had  received, 
and  the  whole  whitewashed  inside  and  out. 
The  roof,  later  covered  with  oaken  shingles  and 
now  with  soft-coloured  slates,  was  in  the  Mid- 
dle Ages  thatched  deeply  with  reed  or  straw. 
At  the  east  end  was  the  small  slit  window,  and 
at  the  south  end  a  door  so  low  that  even  a  short 
person  must  stoop  to  enter  it.  Originally  there 
were  no  bell  turrets  or  porches,  and  at  the  east- 
ern gable  merely  a  wooden  cross.  Inside,  a 
screen  divided  the  building  in  half,  the  squints 
covered  by  veils,  and  several  doors  opening 
into  the  altar  space.  Probably  the  screen  was 
decorated  with  painting  as  the  barrel  vaults 
came  to  be.  Within  and  without,  the  sanctuary 


Gallant  Little  Wales 


gleamed  pure  white.  The  Saxons  learned  the 
use  of  whitewash  from  the  British,  and  St.  Wil- 
frid gloried  in  having  washed  the  York  Min- 
ster of  his  day  "  whiter  than  snow." 

As  the  cottages,  coloured  white  or  yellow  or 
pink,  are  seen  nestling  against  the  hills  of  Wales, 
one  regrets  that  the  church  no  longer  receives 
as  in  olden  days  the  same  treatment.  With  the 
wash  worn  from  the  churches  and  never  re- 
newed, the  country  has  lost  in  picturesque 
beauty.  How  pretty  these  buildings  must  have 
looked,  with  their  steep  thatched  roofs  and 
white  bell-cots  gleaming  in  the  midst  of 
dark  yews,  or  perhaps  some  golden-tinted 
church  glowing  like  a  crocus  in  the  midst  of 
pines.  Not  only  have  the  colours  faded,  as  if 
the  land  were  some  bright  missal  turning  gray, 
but  the  odd  circular  huts  with  their  conical 
thatched  roofs,  in  which  the  natives  once  lived, 
have  tumbled  down.  In  those  days  was  a  beau- 
tiful hospitality,  the  host  and  hostess  serving 
until  all  were  served,  and  in  these  rude  dwell- 
ings the  ancient  harp  was  played ;  and  from  the 
wooden  book,  its  revolving  square  crossbars 
inscribed  with  letters  or  notes  of  music,  were 
read  the  ancient  song  and  poetry  of  Wales. 
[40] 


< 
w 

o 


Q 

w 
Pi 


CO 


Hilltop   Churches 


When  the  rectangular  cottage  came  in  it  did 
not  differ  greatly  from  the  circular  hut.  There 
were  windows  —  "  wind-eyes  " — covered  with 
a  wooden  lattice  and  shutter,  the  walls  smoothly 
plastered,  and  the  interior  made  less  primitive 
by  the  use  of  three-legged  tables  and  chairs. 
Still  later,  in  the  seventeenth  and  eighteenth 
centuries,  the  one  space  was  divided  off  into 
kitchen,  chamber,  and  loft,  the  kitchen  open  to 
the  roof  and  airy,  healthful,  and  clean.  Hospi- 
tality was  sacred  then ;  any  man  might  enter  a 
dwelling,  and  delivering  up  his  arms  stay  as 
long  as  he  would. 

The  church  was  but  another  sanctuary  in 
olden  days  where  men  could  take  refuge  from 
sin  or  foe.  The  "  llan,"  which  is  the  prefix  to 
fully  eight  tenths  of  all  the  names  of  ancient 
churches  in  North  Wales,  means  "  enclosure." 
Probably  in  these  places  were  the  earliest  mon- 
astic settlements,  at  a  time  when  the  "  llan,"  as 
the  Irish  "  rath,"  enclosed  habitation  as  well  as 
sanctuary.  But  as  the  years  brought  about  greater 
specification  in  the  functions  of  church  and  state 
the  term  narrowed  itself  down  and  was  applied 
solely  to  the  church.  The  old  churchyard  walls 
are  still  more  or  less  circular  like  British  fort 

[41  ] 


Gallant  Little  Wales 


walls.  Llangelynin  has  an  enclosure  that  undoubt- 
edly follows  the  old  lines.  The  walls  of  the 
churchyard  near  Holyhead  are  extremely  ancient, 
seventeen  feet  high  and  six  feet  thick.  This 
masonry,  from  the  presence  of  certain  round 
towers  and  the  particular  plastering  used,  is 
known  to  be  Roman.  Set  away  from  the  world 
that  is  "  too  much  with  us,"  these  enclosures  are 
charming  old  spaces,  habitable  in  a  sweet  sense. 
The  grass  looks  peace  into  tired  eyes,  and  to 
eyes  eager  with  plans  rest  here  is  merely  an 
emphasis  upon  the  joy  of  living.  And  here,  as 
the  stiles  into  the  close  show,  the  children  play 
and  have  played  from  generation  to  generation. 
Here  they  climbed  upon  the  roof,  and  here 
against  the  north  and  west  walls,  where  burials 
are  never  made,  they  played  ball  and  scratched 
upon  the  stone  their  scoring-marks. 

At  Llangelynin  there  are  no  yew  trees ;  that 
windy  height  is  too  bleak  for  even  the  sturdy 
yew.  Only  white  harebells  and  hardy  grass  blow 
about  on  its  bare  rock-strewn  summit.  But  in 
most  of  the  enclosures  the  yew  still  stands  as 
the  one  enduring  monument  of  a  past  whose 
very  rocks  have  been  covered  by  the  silt  of  over 
a  thousand  years.  Many  of  these  trees  date  from 

[  4^  ] 


Hilltop  Churches 


a  British  period  and  remain  emblematic  to-day 
as  they  were  then.  Sometimes  it  is  a  single  yew 
by  the  lychgate  which  one  sees,  or  an  alley  of 
the  deathless  green,  or  perhaps  yew  branches  com- 
pletely veil  a  gable  end  of  the  little  church.  At 
Beddgelert,  the  oldest  foundation  in  all  Wales, 
the  yew  stands  to-day  as  it  stood  some  two  thou- 
sand years  ago;  about  its  base  have  rushed 
the  floods  of  wild  mountain  torrents,  from  its 
feet  the  graves  of  centuries  have  been  washed 
away  down  to  the  all-embracing  sea.  Like  child- 
ren of  yesterday  are  the  mediaeval  lychgates 
through  which  one  passes  into  the  church  enclos- 
ure and  through  which  is  often  caught  the  first 
glimpse  of  the  church  bell-cot.  At  Caerhun  (the 
ancient  Canovium),  where  the  yew  spreads  over 
the  gate  is  a  double  bell-cot,  which,  as  it  has  the 
traditional  straight  ridge  and  gable  in  the  middle, 
is  amongst  the  oldest  in  Wales,  of  the  fourteenth 
or  fifteenth  century,  for  the  cots  as  well  as  the  lych- 
gates  are  "  recent "  in  the  life  of  these  churches. 
The  little  crucifixes  with  their  straight  arms  are 
also  of  this  date.  Before  this  time  the  local 
churches  had  nothing  but  hand-bells,  which  were 
held  in  great  reverence.  One  of  them  may  be 
seen  in  the  stone  coffin  of  Llewelyn  the  Great 
[  43  ] 


Gallant  Little  Wales 


at  Llanrwst.  It  is  about  ten  inches  high  and 
cast  on  an  oblong  plan.  Gildas  gave  such  a  bell 
to  St.  David.  Six  hundred  years  later,  in  the 
twelfth  century,  Giraldus  Cambrensis  tells  the 
story  of  a  portable  bell  called  "  Bangu  "  which, 
when  a  certain  woman  carried  it  to  a  castle  where 
her  husband  was  wrongfully  imprisoned,  caused 
the  destruction  of  the  whole  town  except  the 
church  walls.  The  campanology  of  North  Wales 
is  a  romance  in  itself,  a  collection  of  odd,  inter- 
esting, pathetic  tales  of  past  miracles,  past  friend- 
ships, past  enmities. 

The  original  buildings  not  only  did  not  have 
lychgates  and  bell-cots,  they  also  did  not  have 
porches,  and  some  to-day  do  not  have  them. 
But  they  are  being  added  from  time  to  time, 
and  fearful  are  some  of  them  to  behold.  At 
St.  Mary's,  Llanfwrog  Church,  just  across  the 
bridge  from  quaint  Ruthin,  where  the  Duchess 
of  Westminster  has  lived  and  is  of  vastly  more 
interest  to  the  people  than  gable  ends  and  oaken 
rafters  and  other  such  stuff,  fit  only  for  the  attics 
of  men's  minds,  is  a  bit  of  "  restoration"  suitable 
for  display  in  the  windows  of  a  carriage-shop. 
The  chancel  railing  is  bright  green,  red,  and 
black,  the  pews  black  and  red,  —  a  foretaste 
[44] 


Hilltop  Churches 


possibly  of  the  landscape  into  which  some  of 
their  occupants  will  one  day  take  a  dip, — 
and  the  stained  glass  vies  with  a  refracted  solar 
ray  in  yellows  and  oranges  and  reds  and  blues 
and  greens.  From  this  "  restored  "  edifice  drops 
a  long  flight  of  steps  past  the  windows  and  sign- 
board of  an  ancient  hostelry,  "  Ye  Labour  in 
Vain  Inn."  One  cannot  help  wishing  that  the 
white  gentleman  upon  the  signboard,  who  is 
scrubbing  a  black  man  in  a  tub  of  water,  would 
take  his  scrubbing-brush  up  to  the  church.  Often, 
after  all  else  has  been  hopelessly  restored  and  all 
vestiges  of  harmonious  beauty  have  disappeared, 
the  old  doorway  remains,  witness  of  an  instinct- 
ive reverence  for  a  threshold.  Many  of  the 
circular-headed  doorways,  now  hooded  with 
porches,  date  from  the  eleventh  and  twelfth 
centuries  and  even  earlier,  and  through  them 
one  passes  over  a  mere  sill  into  the  sacred 
enclosure. 

A  few  points,  simple  and  easy  to  remember 
as  well  as  easy  to  discover,  give  an  added  intel- 
ligent pleasure  in  the  study  of  these  churches. 
The  oldest  churches  are  generally  from  twelve 
feet  six  inches  to  fourteen  feet  wide ;  the  early 
walls  from  three  feet  to  three  feet  six  inches 

[45] 


Gallant  Liittle  Wales 


thick.  Sixteenth-century  walls  rarely  exceed  two 
feet  and  a  half  in  thickness.  The  old  wattle 
buildings  were  daubed  with  a  mixture  of  clay 
and  cow  dung;  these  church  walls  are  built  with 
earth  and  rendered  on  the  face  with  lime  and 
mortar.  Buttresses  are  sometimes  found,  but 
they  do  not  belong  ^to  early  local  work.  The 
roofs  are  easy  to  examine  and  often  of  an  en- 
chanting beauty.  At  Llangelynin  is  a  roof  which 
is  probably  the  original  twelfth-century  cover- 
ing. The  roof  at  Llanrhychwyn  is  also  of  the 
close  couple  type;  here  the  struts  are  straight, 
but  carved,  and  there  are  two  ties  across  the 
nave.  In  some  of  these  roofs  are  intermediary 
rafters,  added  when  the  thatch  was  replaced  by 
slate.  ^ 

The  earliest  mention  of  a  chancel  of  which  I 
know  is  that  in  the  poems  of  Cynddelw,  who 
lived  in  the  twelfth  century,  in  his  ode  to  Ty- 
silio,  when  he  speaks  of  a  certain  church  as 
the  "light  or  shining  church"  with  a  chancel 
for  mass.  We  cannot  assume  that  even  in 
the  twelfth  century  chancels  were  by  any  means 
common  in  North  Wales.  At  Mallwyd  Church 
there  was,  not  so  long  ago,  a  communion  table 
in  the  centre  of  the  building,  and  there  is  no 

[  46  ] 


Hilltop  Churches 


question  but  that  holy  ceremonies  were  per- 
formed originally,  instead  of  at  a  chancel  end, 
in  the  midst  of  this  rectangular  Holy  of  Holies. 
At  Bardsey,  Pennant  found  an  insulated  stone 
altar  rather  nearer  the  east  end  than  the  centre. 
The  rough,  uneven  slate  paving  in  these  churches 
is  comparatively  modern,  and  it  might  be  added 
comparatively  luxurious.  The  first  paving  was 
mud  and  sometimes  flat  stones.  Formerly  the 
windows  were  covered  by  wooden  shutters  or 
lattices;  that  was  the  usage  in  all  conventual 
buildings.  Now  the  windows  are  either  well 
or  illy  filled  with  coloured  glass.  In  many  of 
the  churches  falling  into  great  dilapidation  the 
windows  have  been  stuffed  with  stone  and  mor- 
tar, or  rudely  boarded  over.  Some  of  the  stained 
glass  is  genuinely  ugly  and  some  of  it  genuinely 
and  anciently  lovely.  That  at  Llanrhychwyn, 
coloured  in  brown  line  and  yellow  stain  and 
representing  the  Virgin  and  Child  and  the  Holy 
Trinity,  is  of  the  fifteenth  century  and  still  beau- 
tiful. Probably  the  use  of  glass^was  not  intro- 
duced into  Wales  till  the  thirteenth  century. 
West  windows  were  unknown  in  local  Welsh 
work.  Where  a  window  with  such  an  exposure 
is  found,  the  opening  did  not  belong  to  the  early 
[47  ] 


Gallant  Little  Wales 


church.  There  are  windows  of  great  antiquity 
in  these  churches.  Look  at  the  lintelled  win- 
dow in  the  passageway  into  St.  Beuno's  Chapel. 
Courage  hesitates  at  assigning  a  date  to  this  bit 
of  work.  There  are  windows  far  more  elaborate 
of  a  comparatively  early  date,  but  they  are  the 
work  of  Latin  monks  and  do  not  follow  the 
straight  lines  of  the  native  British  architecture. 
An  exquisite  example  of  early  Latin  work  is 
that  of  the  Gilbertine  monks  upon  the  Bedd- 
gelert  triplet. 

The  barrel  vaults  in  these  churches  are  curious 
concave  coverings  over  the  chancel  end,  ark- 
like in  form  and  supposed  type  of  the  ancient 
church.  These  oaken  canopies  have  been  elab- 
orately painted  in  the  past;  now  they  are  to  be 
seen  in  every  stage  of  dilapidation,  provoking 
the  eye  by  their  interrupted  pictures  or  faint 
lines  of  red  and  blue.  They  are  approximately 
of  the  same  date,  although  not  in  the  same 
condition,  for  their  destruction  is  due  to  leaky 
roofs  and  not  to  age.  The  ground  colour  was 
the  green-blue  the  Middle  Ages  loved  so  well, 
and  the  other  colours  red,  yellow,  and  white. 
At  Llandanwg,  where  the  sea  would  flow  into 
the  western  door  were  it  not  for  a  big  embank- 

[48] 


Hilltop  Churches 


ment,  there  is  a  barrel  vault  with  faint  traces  of 
painting  upon  it.  An  old  man  whose  father  and 
mother  were  the  last  people  to  be  married  there 
told  us  he  took  an  interest  in  it,  it  was  the  only 
church  in  Harlech  Parish  fifty  years  ago,  and  "  the 
only  service  held  there  then  was  when  the  parson 
and  the  clerk  used  to  go  over  and  enjoy  drinking 
their  beer  on  the  gravestones."  English  came 
stiff  to  his  tongue,  but  he  described  the  fear- 
ful condition  of  the  church,  and  the  way  the 
people  took  off  the  seats  for  firewood  and  the 
children  made  a  playhouse  of  the  abandoned 
structure.  In  one  corner  of  the  barrel  vault  was 
a  picture  of  the  Devil  prodding  people  down 
into  hell.  The  children  threw  things  at  these 
paintings,  mud  and  other  articles,  till  the  pictures 
were  completely  destroyed.  Whatever  the  sub- 
ject, it  is  pleasant  to  recall  the  colouring  of  the 
barrel  vaults,  for,  executed  five  or  six  hundred 
years  ago,  they  must  have  been  brightly  beau- 
tiful like  the  margins  of  an  illuminated  book, 
radiant  with  something  of  the  blue  and  gold  of 
very  heaven  itself  Of  the  rood  screens  and  lofts 
that  veiled  the  chancel  space,  there  are  but  few 
left  intact;  of  the  sacred  rood  itself,  no  vestige 
except  the  socket  on  the  candlebeam  into  which 
[49] 


Gallant  Little  Wales 


its  pedestal  slipped.  Fanaticism  has  swept  this 
feature  away.  In  Beddgelert  their  rood-screen 
carving  was  converted  into  chairs  for  household 
use  or  fuel  for  warmth.  Strangely  enough,  Queen 
Elizabeth  was  the  last  defender  of  the  screen's 
mystical  beauty  of  carven  wood  and  the  silent 
admonishing  figure  stretched  upon  its  fa9ade. 
At  Llanengan  there  is  a  screen  of  rare  delicacy, 
stolen,  together  with  some  elbow  stalls  and  sil- 
ver bells,  from  Bardsey,  that  resting-place  of 
saints  which  seems  to  have  been  to  the  ecclesias- 
tical world  what  Fuseli  said  Blake  was  to  the 
art  world,  "good  to  steal  from."  Chests,  worm- 
eaten  and  with  rusty  bolts,  are  often  among  the 
church  treasures.  St.  Beuno's  chest  at  Clynnog 
is  as  old  as  the  saint  himself  And  at  Clynnog, 
too,  are  dog  tongs,  or  lazy  tongs  as  they  were 
sometimes  called,  in  each  paddle  four  sharp- 
ened nails  which  must  have  seemed  bitter  to 
any  doggie's  sides,  lean  or  fat,  as  he  was  lifted  igno- 
miniously  out  of  the  sanctuary.  And,  oh,  woe  if 
it  caught  him  by  the  tail  or  foot!  There  are 
different  types  of  fonts  in  these  churches :  small 
square  fonts  like  the  earliest  of  Palestine,  Asia 
Minor,  Egypt;  extremely  small  fonts  of  various 
shapes  dating  from  the  eleventh  to  the  four- 

[50] 


Hilltop  Churches 


teenth  century;  large  fonts  used  for  immersion, 
and  belonging  to  the  fifteenth  and  sixteenth 
centuries.  At  Llanderfel  near  Corwen  is  a 
wooden  image,  never,  I  imagine,  satisfactorily- 
accounted  for.  It  is  a  horse,  though  curiously 
like  a  deer  in  appearance.  This  figure  was  the 
standard  for  the  image  that  rested  upon  it  and 
which  went,  several  hundred  years  ago,  to  help 
in  the  burning  of  poor  Friar  Forest  at  Smith- 
field,  to  whom,  while  the  fire  crackled  about 
his  feet,  Latimer  preached  a  sermon.  Now  even 
the  brass  tablet  on  the  standard  has  been  sent  to 
the  British  Museum,  and  the  standard  itself,  till 
within  the  last  few  years,  used  for  a  pig-trough. 
Apparently  London  thought  a  Welshman 
who  denied  the  supremacy  of  the  king  worth 
burning,  difficult  to  be  rid  of  Well  might 
Englishmen  consider  such  a  man's  forebears  in 
saintship.  The  Latins  tried  to  rid  the  Western 
world  of  these  anomalies  in  spiritual  heritage  — 
in  vain !  The  Reformation  burnt  them.  In  vain, 
too,  for  the  Welshman  to-day,  nonconformist 
and  conformist  alike,  is  as  tenacious  of  the  lists 
of  his  hagiology  as  ever  he  was  a  thousand  years 
ago.  To  the  ancient  Celt  there  were  three  free 
dignitaries:   church,   land,   and  poet.   To-day 

[51] 


Gallant  Little  Wales 


these  remain  the  revered  dignitaries  to  the 
Welshman.  In  the  past  these  offices  had  been 
closely  united,  for  to  a  Welshman  saintship 
came  by  birth,  celebrity  depended  afterwards 
upon  how  he  acted.  There  is  an  odd  title  to  a 
Welsh  catalogue  of  saints  :  "  Bonedd  Saint  ynys 
Prydain,"  —  the  Gentility  of  the  Saints  of  the 
Isle  of  Britain.  An  old  Irish  song  says  of  St. 
Patrick  that  he  "was  a  gentleman  and  came  of 
decent  people,"  a  fact  which  to  us  does  not 
seem  prerequisite  for  saintdom.  Not  so  to  the 
Celt;  and  it  is  best  to  keep  this  essential  differ- 
ence in  mind,  or  one  might  be  puzzled  by  run- 
ning across  the  annals,  some  day,  of  a  saint  in 
so  cheery  a  state  that  he  fell  into  his  own  holy 
well  and  escaped  drowning  only  because  of  the 
good  luck  universally  known  to  attend  people 
in  a  similar  condition.  The  object  of  the  Celtic 
saint,  till  he  became  Latinized,  was  to  serve  his 
tribe  by  increasing  its  riches  and  enlarging  its 
boundaries.  It  was  not  necessary  for  him,  as  it 
was  for  his  brother  Latin,  to  receive  any  papal 
sanction  for  his  sainthood  or  to  work  any  mir- 
acles. His  carte  to  sanctity  was  membership 
in  a  certain  family  or  monastery.  The  Latin 
Christian  world,  establishing  its  supremacy  by 

[50 


THE    EAGLE   TOWER    OF   CARNARVON    CASTLE 

From  an  engraving  by  Cuitt 


I 


Hilltop  Churches 


degrees,  could  not  fail  to  scoff  at  the  temporal 
emphasis  of  Welsh  saintdom.  Even  Giraldus, 
a  Welshman,  comments  mildly  upon  the  vin- 
dictiveness  of  certain  saints,  of  whom  he  often 
knew  more  than  he  cared  to  tell.  Gradually, 
by  ridicule  chiefly,  the  lists  of  Celtic  holy  men 
were  closed.  Even  Bardsey,  the  Insula  Sanct- 
orum of  the  Welsh,  does  not  escape  a  laugh 
from  many  critics,  one  of  whom  observes  that 
"It  would  be  more  facile  to  find  graves  in 
Bardsey  for  so  many  saints  than  saints  for  so 
many  graves";  a  remark  grudging  and  ungra- 
cious, for  the  world  has  condescended  to  steal 
everything  from  Bardsey  and  might  leave  it  at 
least  the  glory  of  claiming  as  many  dead  saints 
as  it  pleases. 

The  tales,  fabulous  and  odd,  told  of  Welsh 
saints,  Welsh  relics,  and  holy  wells,  are  partic- 
ularly charming  because  they  are  not  marred 
by  over-didacticism.  Tydecho  was  an  illustrious 
saint  who  lived  in  the  time  of  King  Arthur. 
Retiring  from  the  world,  he  led  a  life  of  min- 
gled austerity  in  penance  and  of  useful  hours  of 
ploughing.  One  day  a  youth  seized  his  oxen, 
but  the  next  day  wild  stags  were  drawing  the 
plough,  and  a  wolf  harrowing  after  them.  Fur- 
[  53  ] 


Gallant  Little  Wales 


ious,  the  youth  brought  his  dogs  to  chase  away 
Tydecho's  wild  friends.  While  enjoying  this 
diversion  he  seated  himself  upon  a  stone ;  at- 
tempting to  rise  he  found  himself  fixed  to  the 
rock.  Truly  a  humiliating  position  for  a  proud- 
spirited youth  who  enjoys  taunting  an  old  man! 
Friendship  between  man  and  beast  is  woven 
into  these  tales  like  the  bright  colours  threading 
the  letters  of  an  ancient  bestiary.  St.  Monacella 
protected  hares  from  Brochwel  Yscythrog,  who 
was  hunting  them.  She  hid  the  trembling  little 
beasts  under  her  robe  and,  praying  devoutly, 
faced  the  dogs.  The  dogs  ceased  their  running, 
and  even  when  the  horn  was  blown  as  a  com- 
mand to  them  to  follow  the  hare,  they  stole 
away  howling  and  the  horn  stuck  to  the  hunts- 
man's lips.  After  Brochwel  had  listened  to 
Monacella's  plea,  the  little  creatures  were  re- 
leased, and  to  this  day  no  one  in  the  parish  will 
hunt  one  of  Monacella's  lambs. 

Many  and  attractively  full  of  poetry  are  the 
superstitions  that  still  live  in  the  solitudes  of 
northern  Wales.  "Bees  were  created  in  para- 
dise," say  the  "Leges  Wallicse,"  "and  no  light 
save  beeswax  is  to  be  used  at  mass."  When  on 
the  fall  of  man  they  left  paradise,  God  Himself 

[54] 


Hilltop  Churches 


is  said  to  have  blessed  them.  They  produced, 
too,  the  nectarious  "medd"  of  which  the  ancient 
Britons  thought  so  much.  One  day  we  encoun- 
tered a  hillside  woman  in  great  distress,  breath- 
less and  flapping  her  apron;  her  bees  were 
running  away  and  apparently  the  worldly  crea- 
ture had  no  intention  of  letting  them  run  back 
to  paradise.  Bent  pins  are  still  to  be  found  at 
the  bottom  of  the  sacred  well  within  the  church 
close,  pins  dropped  in  before  bathing  to  cure 
warts.  Woe  to  the  bather  who  failed  to  drop 
in  the  propitiatory  pin,  for  he  promptly  caught 
the  warts  of  which  others  had  got  rid.  And  in 
these  holy  wells  the  clothes  of  sick  children 
were  washed,  with  happy  auguries  if  the  little 
garments  floated,  with  fell  portent  if  they  sank. 
At  Llangelynin,  where  the  well  is  still  in  ex- 
cellent condition,  an  old  woman  told  me  that 
to  cure  a  sick  child  a  stranger  to  the  family 
must  dip  the  child  in  after  sundown.  Spitting 
upon  hearing  the  name  of  the  Devil  may  not 
be  polite,  but  it  is  a  simple  way  of  expressing 
contempt,  and  so,  too,  is  smiting  the  breast 
in  self-condemnatory  woe  at  the  name  of 
Judas.  Some  of  their  superstitions  and  cus- 
toms, despite  the  smack  of  folly,  are  wise  in 

[55] 


Gallant  Little  Wales 


their  emphasis  upon  the  power  of  the  imagina- 
tion. 

There  are,  too,  some  wholesome  customs  of 
precedence.  The  parson  always  used  to  go  out 
of  chapel  first,  —  in  some  places  he  does  so 
still,  —  and  the  parishioner  who  disputed  this 
order  of  rank  might  have  his  ears  boxed  for  his 
trouble.  After  the  baptism  of  a  little  child  old 
women  wash  their  failing  eyes  in  the  font  with 
pathetic  faith  in  the  virtue  of  new,  God-given 
life.  There  used  to  be  some  sweet  customs,  not 
entirely  lost  yet,  connected  with  burial.  As  the 
coflBn  rested  on  the  bier  outside  the  door,  the 
next  of  kin  among  the  women  gave  to  the  poor- 
est persons  in  the  parish,  over  the  body  of  the 
dead,  a  great  dish  filled  with  white  bread.  Then 
a  cup  of  drink  was  handed  across  the  bier  to 
the  same  poor  and  all  knelt  to  repeat  the  Lord's 
Prayer.  At  every  crossroad  between  the  house 
and  church  they  knelt  again  to  pray,  the  sex- 
ton's hand-bell  quiet  only  when  all  knees  were 
on  the  earth. 

On  the  way  from  church  to  church  many 
tablets  arrest  the  eye,  kneeling  fathers  and 
mothers  with  processions  of  kneeling  children 
in  a  line  behind  them.  The  viva  voce  history  of 

[56] 


Hilltop  Churches 


these  reliefs  suggests  the  less  quaint  and  more 
beautiful  and  enduring  relievo  of  sepulchral 
urns.  At  Clynnog  I  counted  thirteen  children 
in  happy  procession  after  one  father.  At  Con- 
way I  might  have  counted  twenty-nine  if  I  had 
wished  to,  but  I  had  no  such  wish.  At  Corwen 
we  found  knee-holes  in  both  footstones  and 
headstones  to  make  comfortable  the  knees  of 
friends  while  they  prayed,  —  or  meditated,  as  I 
confess  I  did,  upon  the  hideousness  of  most 
sepulchral  carving  and  inscription.  There  was 
one  part  of  these  records  which,  with  even  the 
best  traditions  behind  me,  could  not  be  under- 
taken—  the  epitaph  or  similar  memento.  Early 
in  the  journey  this  inscription  was  encountered: 

Heare  lyeth  the  body  of 

John,  ap  Robert,  ap  Forth,  ap 

David,  ap  Griffith,  ap  David 

Vauchan,  ap  Blethyn,  ap 

Griffith,  ap  Meredith, 

ap  Jerworth,  ap  Llewelyn, 

ap  Jerorh,  ap  Heilin,  ap 

Cowryd,  ap  Cadvan,  ap 

Alawgwa,  ap  Cadell,  the 

King  of  Powys,  who 

departed  this  life  the 

[57] 


Gallant  L,ittle  Wales 


XX  day  of  March,  in  the 

Year  of  our  Lord  God 

1642, and  of 

his  age  XCV. 

Now  it  was  plain  that  this  was  one  of  the  re- 
sults of  the  saints'  unsaintly  emphasis  upon  a 
family-tree.  Certainly  a  man  has  a  right  to  as 
many  ancestors  as  he  can  compass.  But  there- 
after, when  I  saw  the  usual  clusters  of "  aps " 
and  "GrifFyevanjoneses,"  I  experienced  a  reluct- 
ant and  fluttering  sensation  within  accompanied 
by  external  haste  to  get  elsewhere.  Just  one 
other  epitaph,  by  reason  of  its  brevity,  caught 
my  pencil :  — 

Here  lies  John  Shore, 
I  say  no  more ; 
Who  was  alive 
In  sixty-five. 


IV 

Dr.  Johnson  s  Tour  of  North 
Wales 

**  What  should  we  speak  of 
When  we  are  as  old  as  you  ?  When  we  shall  hear 
The  rain  and  wind  beat  dark  December,  how 
In  this  our  pinching  cave,  shall  we  discourse 
The  freezing  hours  away  ?  We  have  seen  nothing.  *  * 

Even  the  motion  of  driving  in  a  post-chaise 
captivated  the  fancy  of  Dr.  Johnson,  for  he  said, 
"  If  I  had  no  duties,  and  no  reference  to  futur- 
ity, I  would  spend  my  life  in  driving  briskly  in 
a  post-chaise  with  a  pretty  woman;  but  she 
should  be  one  who  could  understand  me,  and 
would  add  something  to  the  conversation."  Mrs. 
Piozzi,  who,  except  for  that  of  prettiness,  ful- 
filled these  requirements  both  as  a  brilliant  con- 
versationalist and  owner  of  a  post-chaise,  asked 
her  beloved  Doctor  why  he  doted  on  a  coach. 
Johnson's  reply  was,  that  in  the  first  place  the 
company  was  shut  in  with  him  "and  could  not 
escape  as  out  of  a  room,"  and  that  in  the  second 
place,  he  could  hear  all  the  conversation  in  a 

[59] 


Gallant  Little  Wales 


carriage.  Any  lamentations  while  travelling  thus 
he  considered  proof  of  an  empty  head  or  tongue 
that  wished  to  talk  and  had  nothing  about  which 
to  talk.  "A  mill  that  goes  without  grist,"  he  ex- 
claimed, "  is  as  good  a  companion  as  such  crea- 
tures." As  for  himself,  he  felt  no  inconvenience 
upon  the  road  and  he  expected  others  to  feel 
none.  He  allowed  nobody  to  complain  of  rain, 
sun,  or  dust.  And  so  greatly  did  he  love  this 
act  of  going  forward  that  Mrs.  Thrale  (Mrs. 
Piozzi)  said  she  could  not  tell  how  far  he  might 
be  taken  before  he  would  think  of  refresh- 
ments. 

Yet  the  impression  which  Macaulay  gave  of 
Johnson's  attitude  towards  travelling  is  the  one 
generally  held :  ''  Of  foreign  travel  and  of  history 
he  spoke  with  the  fierce  and  boisterous  contempt 
of  ignorance.  '  What  does  a  man  learn  by  trav- 
elling? Is  Beauclerk  the  better  for  travelling? 
What  did  Lord  Claremount  learn  in  his  travels, 
except  that  there  was  a  snake  in  one  of  the 
pyramids  of  Egypt  ? ' "  History  has  proved  that 
Macaulay  could  be  brilliantly  inaccurate ;  cer- 
tainly in  this  estimate  of  Johnson  he  was  so.  In 
still  another  passage  Macaulay  says  that  Dr. 
Johnson  "took  it  for  granted  that  everybody 

[60] 


Dr.  Johnson  s  Tour  of  North  Whales 

who  lived  in  the  country  was  either  stupid  or 
miserable."  The  first  twenty-seven  years  of  his 
life  Johnson  spent  in  small  country  towns  and, 
although  he  was  sometimes  miserable,  because 
he  was  wretchedly  poor,  he  was  never  stupid. 

It  was  the  young  traveller  whom  he  censured, 
not  the  mature  traveller  or  travelling  in  general. 
It  was  characteristic  of  him  to  say,  "  I  never 
like  young  travellers;  they  go  too  raw  to  make 
any  great  remarks."  Indeed,  so  grave  was  his 
sense  of  the  value  of  travel  that  he  took  it  upon 
himself  to  rebuke  Boswell,  as  Boswell  records : 
"  Dr.  Johnson  expressed  a  particular  enthusiasm 
with  respect  to  visiting  the  Wall  of  China.  I 
catched  it  for  the  moment,  and  said  I  really  be- 
lieved I  should  go  and  see  the  Wall  of  China 
had  I  not  children,  of  whom  it  was  my  duty  to 
take  care.  'Sir,'  (said  he),  'by  doing  so  you 
would  do  what  would  be  of  importance  in  rais- 
ing your  children  to  eminence.  There  would  be 
a  lustre  reflected  upon  them  from  your  spirit  and 
curiosity.  They  would  be  at  all  times  as  the 
children  of  a  man  who  had  gone  to  view  the 
Wall  of  China.  I  am  serious,  sir. ' " 

In  his  college  days  Johnson  may  not  have 
had  the  same  reasons  as  the  young  poet  Keats 
[6i  ] 


Gallant  Little  Wales 


for  going  "  wonderways,"  but  reasons  he  had. 
With  the  Doctor,  perhaps  even  more  truly  than 
with  Keats,  curiosity  was  "  the  first  passion  and 
the  last."  While  an  undergraduate  he  was  heard 
to  say,  "  I  have  a  mind  to  see  what  is  done  in 
other  places  of  learning.  I  '11  go  and  visit  the 
universities  abroad.  I  '11  go  to  France  and  Italy. 
I  '11  go  to  Padua."  Twice  he  urged  Boswell  "  to 
perambulate  Spain,"  and  of  their  tour  to  the 
Hebrides  everybody  knows.  There  was  talk  of 
his  going  to  Iceland,  and  for  a  time  the  great 
Doctor  discussed  travelling  around  the  world 
with  two  friends. 

Of  the  existence  of  the  journal  of  Johnson's 
tour  in  North  Wales  even  Boswell  did  not  know. 
This  journey  was  begun  by  the  Thrales  and 
the  Doctor  leaving  Streatham  at  eleven  o'clock 
on  Tuesday  morning  of  July  15,  1774.  On  their 
way  they  stopped  at  Litchfield  at  the  house  of 
Dr.  Darwin,  psychologist,  poet,  and  grandfather 
of  Charles  Darwin,  of  whose  roses  Mrs.  Piozzi 
wrote,  "  I  have  no  roses  equal  to  those  at  Litch- 
field, where  on  one  tree  I  recollect  counting 
eighty-four  within  my  own  reach;  it  grew  against 
the  house  of  Dr.  Darwin." 

After  passing  through  several  towns  on  their 

[62] 


Dr.  Johnson  s  Tour  of  North  Wales 

route  to  North  Wales  they  came,  a  party  of 
four,  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Thrale,  little  Queenie  and 
Johnson,  to  Chester  on  July  twenty-seventh. 
Of  Chester  the  Doctor  made  short  work.  He 
was  more  interested  in  a  grammar  school  held 
in  part  of  the  Abbey  refectory  than  in  aught 
else,  and  wrote  particularly,  "  The  Master  seemed 
glad  to  see  me."  Of  course  the  Master  was  glad, 
for  was  not  Johnson  the  greatest  man  of  his  day  ? 
There  is  not  one  word  for  the  quiet  beauty  of 
the  Dee,  no  mention  of  Cheshire  cheese,  and 
nothing  about  Chester  ale,  which  perhaps  John- 
son found  as  bad  as  did  Sion  Tudor.  Of  their 
sojourn  in  Chester  we  get  a  more  lively  picture 
from  Mrs.  Thrale's  comment  on  the  entry  in 
the  Doctor's  journal  than  from  the  journal  itself. 
Johnson  wrote,  "  We  walked  round  the  walls, 
which  are  compleat."  Mrs.  Piozzi  observed, 
"Of  those  ill-fated  walls  Dr.  Johnson  might 
have  learned  the  extent  from  any  one.  He  has 
since  put  me  fairly  out  of  countenance  by  say- 
ing, 'I  have  known  my  mistress  fifteen  years, 
and  never  saw  her  fairly  out  of  humour  but  on 
Chester  wall';  it  was  because  he  would  keep 
Miss  Thrale  beyond  her  hour  of  going  to  bed 
to  walk  on  the  wall,  where  from  the  want  of 

[63] 


Gallant  Little  Wales 


light,  I  apprehended  some  accident  to  her, — 
perhaps  to  him."  Probably  nine-year-old  "Miss 
Thrale  "  did  not  mind  being  kept  beyond  her 
hour  of  going  to  bed  by  a  stout  gentleman  who 
was  her  devoted  slave ! 

The  next  day  they  entered  Wales,  dined  at 
Mold  and  came  to  Llewenni.  Mrs.  Thrale's 
cousin,  Robert  Cotton,  was  living  at  Llewenni 
Hall,  which  in  1817,  after  having  been  one  thou- 
sand years  in  possession  of  the  family,  was  torn 
down.  At  Whitchurch,  a  few  miles  away,  is  an  ala- 
baster altar  monument  to  one  of  the  Salusbury's 
who  owned  this  hall,  Sir  John,  or  Syr  John  y 
Bodiau  ("Sir  John  of  the  Thumbs").  This  an- 
cestor of  Mrs.  Piozzi  was  not  only  distinguished 
by  two  thumbs  on  either  hand,  but  also  by  a 
giant's  strength.  With  his  bare  fist  he  is  sup- 
posed to  have  slain  a  white  lioness  in  the  Tower 
of  London.  Since  then  white  lionesses  have  all 
disappeared.  Sir  John  of  the  Thumbs  also  killed 
a  mythical  beast  in  a  lair  below  a  near-by  castle, 
and  overthrew  a  famous  giant.  Is  it  any  won- 
der that  Mrs.  Thrale,  with  such  a  forefather, 
should  sometimes  have  painted  things  plus  beau 
que  le  verite^  and  that,  even  as  her  ancestor  was 
fond  of  pulling  up  trees  by  the  roots  when  he 

[64] 


Dr.  Johnson  s  Tour  of  North  Wales 

had  nothing  better  to  do,  his  descendant  should 
once  in  a  while  give  truth  a  little  tug  ? 

But  if  Mrs.  Thrale  had  a  distinguished  pro- 
genitor, she  had  an  even  more  distinguished  an- 
cestress, for  there  at  Llewenni  Hall  lived  "  Mam 
Cymru,"  the  Mother  of  Wales.  This  Catherine 
de  Berain's  first  husband  was  a  Salusbury,  her 
second  husband  was  Sir  Richard  Clough.  The 
second  daughter  of  the  second  marriage  married 
Salusbury  of  Bachycraig,  and  from  this  marriage 
Mrs.  Piozzi  was  descended.  Later,  Catherine  de 
Berain  became  the  third  wife  of  Maurice  Wynne, 
who  was  her  third  husband.  It  is  said  that  on 
the  way  home  from  the  funeral  of  her  first  hus- 
band, Wynne  asked  her  to  marry  him.  She  had 
to  refuse,  however,  as  Sir  Richard  Clough  had 
asked  her  on  the  way  to  the  church.  But  she 
assured  him  that  she  was  not  superstitious  about 
the  number  3,  and  agreed  to  give  Wynne  the 
next  opportunity.  She  kept  her  word. 

When  the  Welsh  used  to  speak  of  a  rich 
person,  they  did  not  say  "  rich  as  Croesus  "  but 
"  rich  as  a  Clough."  On  July  thirtieth,  John- 
son and  the  Thrales  visited  a  remarkable  house 
built  by  Sir  Richard,  the  second  husband  of 
"Mam  Cymru."  On  the  thirty-first  day  they 

[65] 


Gallant  Little  Wales 


drove  to  the  Cathedral  of  St.  Asaph,  once  the 
even  smaller  church  of  Llanelwy,  to  which 
Giraldus  Cambrensis  in  his  tour  in  1 188  referred 
as  "  paupercula."  About  that  time  this  tiny- 
cathedral  was  changed  from  wickerwork  .  or 
wood  to  stone.  On  the  same  day  they  saw  the 
Chapel  of  Llewenni,  founded  by  one  of  the 
Salusburys,  where  Johnson  was  surprised  be- 
cause the  service,  read  thrice  on  Sundays,  was 
read  only  once  in  English. 

He  was  dissatisfied  not  only  with  the  order  of 
Welsh  services,  but  also  with  the  behaviour  of 
Welsh  rivers.  On  this  day  he  writes:  "The 
rivers  here  are  mere  torrents  which  are  suddenly 
swelled  by  the  rain  to  great  breadth  and  great 
violence,  but  have  very  little  constant  stream ; 
such  are  the  Clwyd  and  the  Elwy."  About 
Welsh  rivers  Johnson  makes  a  great  many  re- 
marks. He  is  as  scornful  of  them  as  an  Ameri- 
can is  of  the  Thames.  Mrs.  Piozzi  says  that  his 
"ideas  of  anything  not  positively  large  were 
ever  mingled  with  contempt."  He  asked  of  one 
of  the  sharp  currents  in  North  Wales,  "  Has 
this  brook  e'er  a  name  ?  "  "  Why,  dear  Sir,  this 
is  the  River  Ustrad."  "  Let  us,"  said  Dr.  John- 
son, turning  to  his  friend,  "jump  over  it  di- 
[66] 


w 
H 
< 

o 
> 

< 

o 

w 
H 

<: 
o 


Dr.  yohnsons  Tour  of  North  Wales 

rectly,  and  show  them  how  an  Englishman 
should  treat  a  Welsh  river."  Johnson  was  al- 
ways of  opinion  that  when  one  had  seen  the 
ocean,  cascades  were  but  little  things.  He  used 
to  laugh  at  Shenstone  most  unmercifully  for  not 
caring  whether  there  was  anything  good  to  eat 
in  the  streams  he  was  so  fond  of  "As  if," 
says  Johnson,  "  one  could  fill  one's  belly  with 
hearing  soft  murmurs,  or  looking  at  rough 
cascades ! " 

It  would  be  difficult  to  make  a  summary  of 
all  the  objects  Johnson  called  "  mean  "  in  North 
Wales.  Among  them  were  towns,  rivers,  inns, 
dinners,  churches,  houses,  choirs.  It  is  safe  to 
say  that  the  great  Doctor  could  not  rid  himself 
altogether  of  English  prejudices  against  the 
Welsh  and  all  things  Welsh.  George  Borrow's 
experience  on  the  summit  of  Snowdon  was  not 
at  all  unusual,  except  that  in  this  instance  an 
Englishman  in  the  presence  of  English  people 
became  the  champion  of  the  Welsh.  Undoubt- 
edly Johnson  was  influenced  in  his  contempt 
not  only  by  his  English  feeling,  but  also  by  the 
fact  that  he  was  a  true  son  of  the  eighteenth 
century,  with  all  that  century's  emphasis  on 
power,  on  size,  on  utility. 

[  67  ] 


Gallant  Little  Wales 


Yet  Johnson  was  not  totally  incapable  of  ap- 
preciating the  romantic  scenery  of  Wales.  Some 
part  of  it,  the  more  cultivated,  he  seems  to  have 
felt,  for  on  the  very  next  day  there  is  this  re- 
cord :  "  The  way  lay  through  pleasant  lanes, 
and  overlooked  a  region  beautifully  diversified 
with  trees  and"  grass."  It  mortified  Mrs.  Thrale 
because  Mr.  Thrale,  a  lover  of  landscapes,  could 
not  enjoy  them  with  the  great  Doctor,  who  would 
say,  "Never  heed  such  nonsense,  a  blade  of  grass 
is  always  a  blade  of  grass,  whether  in  one  coun- 
try or  another.  Let  us,  if  we  do  talk,  talk  about 
something ;  men  and  women  are  my  subject  of 
enquiry;  let  us  see  how  these  differ  from  those 
we  have  left  behind."  However,  Johnson  was 
certainly  not  insensible  to  the  beauty  of  na- 
ture. In  describing  his  emotions  at  the  sight 
of  lona,  he  wrote:  "Whatever  withdraws  us 
from  the  power  of  our  senses,  whatever  makes 
the  past,  the  distant,  or  the  future  predominate 
over  the  present,  advances  us  in  the  dignity 
of  thinking  beings."  In  his  tour  in  the  Heb- 
rides he  welcomed  even  the  inconveniences 
of  travelling,  such  as  wind  and  rain,  when  they 
meant  finer  scenery  and  more  pictures  for  the 
mind. 

[68] 


Dr.  Johnson  s  Tour  of  North  Wales 

Much  on  this  same  August  second  was  found 
"  mean,"  including  Mrs.  Thrale's  gift  to  the  ro-  > 
mantic  old  clerk  of  the  parish  church  of  Bachy- 
craig  where  Mrs.  Thrale's  father  was  buried.  The 
day  following,  on  their  arrival  in  Holywell, 
Johnson  had  to  admit  that  the  town  was  "  neither 
very  small  nor  very  mean."  He  was  amazed 
and  impressed  by  the  yield  of  water  from  St. 
Winifred's  Well,  and  the  number  of  mill  wheels 
the  water  turned.  But  when  they  went  down 
by  the  stream  to  see  a  prospect,  Johnson  adds 
very  specifically  that  he  "had  no  part"  in  it. 
He  was  vastly  more  interested  in  some  brass  and 
copper  works,  in  lapis  calaminarisj  in  pigs  of 
copper,  and  in  some  ironworks  where  he  saw 
iron  half  an  inch  thick  "square-cut  with  shears 
worked  by  water,"  and  hammers  that  moved  as 
quick  "  as  by  the  hand."  One  has  a  curious  feel- 
ing that,  were  the  Doctor  suddenly  translated 
to  this  world  again,  foundries  would  interest 
him  vastly  more  than  any  natural  panorama. 
In  this  Johnson  was  truly  a  man  of  his  times, 
which  were  epoch-making  because  of  their  new 
interest  in  the  mechanics  of  industry,  their  gi- 
gantic industrial  impulse.  Without  a  word  for 
the  singular  beauties  of  Holywell,  without  refer- 

[69] 


Gallant  Little  Wales 


ence  to  the  legend  of  St.  Winifred  or  mention 
of  the  ruins  of  the  Abbey,  he  concludes  his 
journal  for  August  third :  "  I  then  saw  wire 
drawn,  and  gave  a  shilling.  I  have  enlarged 
my  notion,  though  not  being  able  to  see  the 
movements,  and  not  having  time  to  peep 
closely,  I  know  less  than  I  might." 

Another  feature  of  the  land  impressed  him 
favourably,  the  houses  of  country  gentlemen. 
"  This  country  seems  full  of  very  splendid  houses," 
he  notes  on  August  fourth,  after  visiting  a  Mr. 
Lloyd's  house  near  Ruthin,  where  he  had  been  to 
see  the  castle.  He  writes  quite  at  length  on  the 
ruins  of  Ruthin  and  ends  characteristically,  "Only 
one  tower  had  a  chimney,  so  that  there  was  [little] 
commodity  of  living.  It  was  only  a  place  of 
strength."  It  was  on  this  day  that  the  keep  of  the 
castle,  when  he  heard  that  Mrs.  Thrale  was  a 
native  of  North  Wales,  told  her  that  his  wife  had 
been  a  Welshwoman,  and  had  desired  to  be 
buried  at  Ruthin.  "  So,"  said  the  man,  "  I  went 
with  the  corpse  myself,  because  I  thought  it 
would  be  a  pleasant  journey,  and  indeed  I  found 
Ruthin  a  very  beautiful  place." 

Two  days  later  they  dined  at  Mr.  Myddle- 
ton's,  of  Gwaenynog,  the  gentleman  who  raised 

[70] 


Dr.  yohnsons  Tour  of  North  Whales 

the  unwelcome  monument  to  Johnson's  memory 
before  the  Doctor  had  had  a  chance  to  die,  and 
while  he  still  considered  himself  very  much  alive. 
This  memorial  is  on  the  site  at  Gwaenynog 
where  Johnson  used  to  stroll  up  and  down.  It 
reads :  "  This  spot  was  often  dignified  by  the  pre- 
sence of  Samuel  Johnson,  LL.D.,  whose  moral 
writings,  exactly  conformable  to  the  precepts 
of  Christianity,  gave  ardour  to  Virtue  and  con- 
fidence to  Truth."  Perhaps  it  is  not  strange  that 
Johnson  was  not  pleased  with  the  monument. 
He  wrote  to  Mrs.  Thrale,  "Mr.  Myddleton's 
attention  looks  like  an  intention  to  bury  me 
alive.  I  would  as  willingly  see  my  friend,  how- 
ever benevolent  and  hospitable,  quietly  inurned. 
Let  him  think,  for  the  present,  of  some  more 
acceptable  memorial." 

To  the  Doctor  death  was  always  an  enemy 
who  would,  he  knew,  outwit  him  in  the  end,  a 
terrifying  presence  against  which  he  struggled. 
''But  who  can  run  the  race  with  death?"  he 
cries  despairingly.  This  premature  memorial 
must  have  revolted  everything  in  him,  for  to 
him  "the  whole  of  life"  was  but  keeping  away 
the  thoughts  of  death.  Even  a  dark  road  troubled 
him. 

[71] 


Gallant  Little  Wales 


Leaving  Llewenni  on  August  eighteenth,  they 
started  definitely  forward  on  their  journey.  They 
passed  through  Abergele,  "a  mean  little  town," 
to  Bangor,  where  they  found  "a  very  mean 
inn."  Certainly  meanness  is  accumulating  in 
Wales !  Johnson  had  the  instinctive  contempt 
for  things  Welsh  which  so  many  English  people 
hold.  But,  after  finding  Lord  Bulkely's  house 
at  Bangor  also  "  very  mean,"  this  is  the  point  in 
the  great  Doctor's  journal  where  the  lover  of 
Wales  may  take  heart. 

There  was  one  contrivance  of  the  hand  and 
mind  of  man  which  impressed  Dr.  Johnson  tre- 
mendously. Where  such  works  of  the  Creator 
as  Snowdon,  for  example,  failed,  where  the  mys- 
tery of  this  land  of  legend  passed  him  by, 
castles  succeeded  by  virtue  of  their  size,  the 
strength  of  their  walls,  the  completeness  of  their 
equipment.  In  Denbigh,  Johnson  had  eagerly 
tried  to  trace  the  lines  of  that  "  prodigious  pile  " 
of  a  castle.  So  much  of  the  comment  we  get  in 
this  neglected  Welsh  journal  and  in  Johnson's 
other  writings  seems  to  summarize  itself  in  two 
words :  size  and  power.  He  told  Mrs.  Piozzi  to 
get  a  book  on  gardening,  since  she  would  stay 
in  the  country,  feed  the  chickens,  and  starve 

[7^ 


Dr.  yohnsons  Tour  of  North  Wales 

her  intellect,  "  and  learn,"  he  said,  "  to  raise  the 
largest  turnips,  and  to  breed  the  biggest  fowls." 
It  was  in  vain  that  Mrs.  Piozzi  told  him  that 
the  goodness  of  these  dishes  did  not  depend 
upon  their  size. 

From  Beaumaris  Castle  to  Carnarvon  there 
is  a  crescendo  of  praise,  ending  in  the  memor- 
able words  about  Carnarvon :  "  To  survey  this 
place  would  take  much  time.  I  did  not  think 
there  had  been  such  buildings ;  it  surpassed  my 
ideas."  Of  Beaumaris,  Johnson  wrote :  "  The 
Castle  is  a  mighty  pile.  .  .  .  This  Castle  cor- 
responds with  all  the  representatives  of  romanc- 
ing narratives.  Here  is  not  wanting  the  private 
passage,  the  dark  cavity,  the  deep  dungeon,  or 
the  lofty  tower.  We  did  not  discover  the  well. 
This  is  the  most  compleat  view  that  I  have  yet 
had  of  an  old  Castle."  And  then  came  four  last 
delighted  words,  "  It  had  a  moat." 

Nor  was  the  next  day,  August  twentieth,  less 
of  a  success.  After  meeting  with  some  friends 
they  went  to  see  the  castle  in  Carnarvon,  which 
Johnson  describes  as  "  an  edifice  of  stupendous 
magnitude  and  strength ;  it  has  in  it  all  that  we 
observed  at  Beaumaris,  and  much  greater  di- 
mensions, many  of  the  smaller  rooms  floored 

£73] 


Gallant  Little  Wales 


with  stone  are  entire;  of  the  larger  rooms,  the 
beams  and  planks  are  all  left;  this  is  the  state 
of  all  buildings  left  to  time.  We  mounted  the 
Eagle  Tower  by  one  hundred  and  sixty-nine 
steps,  each  of  ten  inches.  We  did  not  find  the 
well;  nor  did  I  trace  the  moat;  but  moats  there 
were,  I  believe,  to  all  castles  on  the  plain,  which 
not  only  hindered  access,  but  prevented  mines. 
We  saw  but  a  very  small  part  of  the  mighty 
ruin,  and  in  all  these  old  buildings,  the  subter- 
raneous works  are  concealed  by  the  rubbish." 

When  Johnson  and  the  Thrales  were  on  their 
way  from  Llewenni  to  Bangor,  they  passed 
through  Conway.  The  Doctor  was  much  exer- 
cised in  Conway  because  of  the  plight  of  an 
Irish  gentlewoman  and  her  young  family  who 
could  get  no  beds  to  sleep  in,  but  the  one  fea- 
ture in  this  rare  old  town  which  might  have 
impressed  him,  its  castle,  he  did  not  notice  in 
the  journal.  Built  by  the  same  architect  who 
planned  Carnarvon,  it  has  much  of  its  grace  and 
is  in  some  respects  even  more  beautifully  placed. 
With  its  machicolated  towers,  its  vast  banquet- 
ing-hall,  Queen  Eleanor's  oratory,  and  the  river 
washing  at  its  foundations,  it  is  still  a  wonder- 
ful old  pile.  On  the  return  trip  Johnson  makes 

[74] 


Dr.  yohnsons  Tour  of  North  Whales 

a  short,  practical  note  to  the  effect  that  the 
castle  afforded  them  nothing  new,  and  that  if  it 
was  larger  than  that  of  Beaumaris,  it  was  smaller 
than  that  of  Carnarvon.  Carnarvon  was  the 
largest,  and  the  Doctor  was  not  to  be  weaned 
from  it  any  more  than  from  the  idea  that  Mrs. 
Thrale  ought  to  raise  the  largest  turnips. 

The  day  following  this  memorable  inspection 
of  Carnarvon  Castle,  they  dined  with  Sir  Thomas 
Wynne  and  his  Lady.  Johnson's  comment  was 
brief,  —  "the  dinner  mean.  Sir  Thomas  civil, 
his  Lady  nothing."  It  would  seem  that  Lady 
Wynne  failed  to  recognize  the  greatness  of  her 
visitor,  and,  accustomed  to  a  distinguished  re- 
ception, the  great  man's  vanity  was  hurt.  After- 
wards he  made  remarks  about  Sir  Thomas's 
Lady,  in  which  she  was  compared  to  "  sour  small 
beer  "  and  "  run  tea."  Of  a  lady  in  Scotland  he 
had,  said  "that  she  resembled  a  dead  nettle; 
were  she  alive  she  would  sting." 

This  mean  dinner  and,  we  presume,  its 
meaner  hostess  were  but  a  sorry  prelude  to  a 
melancholy  journey  which  the  party  had  to 
take  to  Mrs.  Thrale's  old  home  at  Bodvel. 
They  found  nothing  there  as  in  Mrs.  Thrale's 
childhood;  the  walk  was  cut  down,  the  pond 

[-75] 


Gallant  Little  Wales 


was  dry.  The  near-by  churches  which  Mrs. 
Thrale  held  by  impropriation  Johnson  thought 
"mean  and  neglected  to  a  degree  scarcely 
imaginable.  They  have  no  pavement,  and  the 
earth  is  full  of  holes.  The  seats  are  rude 
benches;  the  altars  have  no  rails.  One  of  them 
has  a  breach  in  the  roof  On  the  desk,  I  think, 
of  each  lay  a  folio  Welsh  Bible  of  the  black 
letter,  which  the  curate  cannot  easily  read." 
Over  one  hundred  and  thirty  years  later  it  was 
that  I  made  the  tour,  which  I  have  described 
for  you,  of  these  Welsh  churches  of  early  found- 
ation. Mysterious,  desolate,  dilapidated  old 
places  they  are ;  in  comparison  with  the  ugly, 
comfortable  nonconformist  chapels,  spectacles 
for  the  prosperous  to  jeer  at. 

Mrs.  Piozzi  tells  a  story  which  shows  that 
the  great  Doctor  brought  terror  to  the  hearts  of 
the  Welsh  parsons.  "  It  was  impossible  not  to 
laugh  at  the  patience  Dr.  Johnson  showed,  when 
a  Welsh  parson  of  mean  abilities,  though  a  good 
heart,  struck  with  reverence  at  the  sight  of  Dr. 
Johnson,  whom  he  had  heard  of  as  the  great- 
est man  living,  could  not  find  any  words  to  an- 
swer his  enquiries  concerning  a  motto  around 
somebody's  arms  which  adorned  a  tombstone 

[76] 


Dr.  yohnsons  Tour  of  North  Wales 

in  Ruabon  Churchyard.  If  I  remember  right, 
the  words  were, — 

Heb  Dw,  Heb  Dym  (Without  God,  without  all) 
Dw  o'  diggon  (God  is  all  sufficient).^ 

And  though  of  not  very  difficult  construction, 
the  gentleman  seemed  wholly  confounded,  and 
unable  to  explain  them ;  till  Dr.  Johnson,  having 
picked  out  the  meaning  by  little  and  little,  said 
to  the  man,  ''Heb  is  a  preposition,  I  believe. 
Sir,  is  it  not  ? '  My  countryman,  recovering  some 
spirits  upon  the  sudden  question,  cried  out,  'So 
I  humbly  presume.  Sir,'  very  comically." 

About  Bodvel  they  found  the  Methodist 
"  prevalent,"  which  could  not  have  been  a  pleas- 
ant circumstance  to  Johnson.  With  noncon- 
formity the  great  Doctor  had  no  sympathy. 
Boswell  says  that  Johnson  thought  them  "  too 
sanguine  in  their  accounts  of  their  success  among 
savages,  and  that  much  of  what  they  tell  is  not 
to  be  believed.  He  owned  that  the  Methodists 
had  done  good;  had  spread  religious  impres- 
sions among  the  vulgar  part  of  mankind ;  but, 
he  said,  they  had  great  bitterness  against  other 

^  Heb  Duw,  Heb  Dym  (Without  God,  Nothing),  Duw 
a'  diggon  (God  and  plenty)  would  be  more  correct  Welsh 
and  a  better  translation. 

[77] 


Gallant  Little  Wales 


Christians,  and  that  he  never  could  get  a  Meth- 
odist to  explain  in  what  he  excelled  others." 

This  unhappy  day  they  concluded  suitably 
by  going  to  Pwllheli,  "  a  mean  old  town  at  the 
extremity  of  the  country,"  where  they  bought 
something  by  which  to  remember  its  meanness. 
Pwllheli  is  still  mean,  but  in  a  different  way, 
for  it  has  become  a  noisy  watering-resort  from 
which  the  quiet  traveller  longs  to  escape  at  the 
first  moment  to  quiet  Abersoch  or  to  Llanen- 
gan  or  Aberdaron,  where  "trippers"  cease  from 
troubling  and  tourists  are  at  rest. 

Nowadays,  even  the  most  breathless  will  grant 
Snowdon  a  few  words  of  praise  —  praise  for  its 
lakes,  awe  for  its  rock-strewn  valleys  like  the 
valley  of  the  shadow  of  death.  Of  the  two  lakes, 
Llyn  Beris  and  Llyn  Padarn,  which  receive  the 
waters  on  the  northern  slope  of  Snowdon,  John- 
son did  not  think  much,  for  he  complained  that 
"  the  boat  is  always  near  one  bank  or  the  other." 
As  for  Snowdon  itself,  the  record  is,  "We 
climbed  with  great  labour.  I  was  breathless  and 
harassed."  There  is  no  word  for  all  that  is  ro- 
mantic or  awe-inspiring,  not  an  exclamation  for 
the  summit  to  which  have  mounted  king,  poet, 
priest,  bard,  wise  men,  through  countless  ages  — 

[78] 


Dr.  yohnsons  Tour  of  North  Wales 

only  a  record  of  Queenie's  goats,  "  one  hundred 
and  forty-nine,  I  think."  Mr.  Thrale,  Queenie's 
father,  was  near-sighted  and  could  not  see  the 
goats,  so  he  had  promised  the  child  a  penny  for 
every  one  she  showed  him.  Dr.  Johnson,  the 
devoted  friend  of  Queenie,  kept  the  account. 

On  their  way  back  to  the  English  border 
again,  they  passed  through  Bangor,  where  John- 
son must  have  been  happy  in  finding  that  "  the 
quire  is  mean ! "  On  August  twenty-eighth  they 
were  once  more  with  hospitable  Mr.  Myddle- 
ton.  Here  they  stayed  for  over  a  week,  and  the 
journal  contains,  among  other  things,  a  long 
note  about  a  Mr.  Griffiths.  The  addition  of  the 
name  of  his  estate  or  village  fails  to  identify  him 
now ;  looking  for  a  Griffiths  or  a  Jones  in  Wales, 
even  a  particular  Jones  or  Griffiths,  is  like 
looking  for  a  needle  in  a  haystack.  Perhaps  the 
present  limitation  to  a  dozen  patronymics  is  a 
blessing  for  courts  of  law,  but  it  is  baffling  for 
the  curious -minded  man.  The  historian  finds 
the  old  Welsh  John  ap  Robert  ap  David  ap 
Griffith  ap  Meredith  ap  David  ap  Vauchan  ap 
Blethyn  ap  Griffith  ap  Meredith,  and  so  on  for 
a  dozen  more  "  aps,"  easier  for  purposes  of  iden- 
tification. 

[  79  ] 


Gallant  Little  Wales 


On  their  homeward  way  Johnson  was  enthu- 
siastic about  Wrexham  and  its  "  large  and  mag- 
nificent "  church,  one  of  the  Seven  Wonders  of 
Wales.  On  the  seventh  of  September  they 
came  to  Chirk  Castle,  but  I  cannot  find  that 
they  went  into  this  residence,  a  place  which  un- 
doubtedly would  have  delighted  Johnson  more 
on  account  of  its  "  commodity  of  living "  and 
solid  grandeur  than  because  one  of  its  heiresses 
was  the  unamiable  Warwick  Dowager  who  had 
married  Addison.  They  left  for  Shrewsbury 
after  they  had  viewed  the  little  waterfall  of 
Pistyll  Rhaiadr,  where  the  Doctor  remarked 
only  upon  its  height  and  the  copiousness  of  its 
fall.  If  Johnson  had  been  an  up-to-date  Cam- 
brian railway  tourist,  he  could  not  have  en- 
tered and  left  North  Wales  in  more  approved 
style,  for  he  came  in  by  way  of  Chester  and  left 
by  way  of  Shrewsbury.  Safely  out  of  Wales 
they  journeyed  homeward  through  Worcester, 
probably  Birmingham,  and  Oxford.  On  Sep- 
tember twenty-fourth  there  is  this  simple  record : 
"We  went  home." 

It  is  to  be  remembered  that  on  this  tour 
Johnson  lacked  the  companionship  of  the  faith- 
ful Boswell.  Yet  the  scantiness  of  the  diary  and 

[80] 


Dr.  Johnson  s  Tour  of  North  Wales 

its  critical  attitude  cannot  be  accounted  for 
wholly  on  this  ground,  but  were  due,  I  think, 
far  more  to  the  fact  that  the  Doctor  was  thor- 
oughly English  in  prejudice.  Tobias  Smollett's 
feeling  in  "  Humphrey  Clinker,"  for  example, 
is  even  more  English  and  uncomplimentary.  All 
through  his  tour  of  the  Hebrides,  though  he 
denounced  Scotland  and  all  things  Scottish, 
called  the  Scotch  liars  and  their  country  naked, 
yet  the  Doctor  had  an  uneasy  conviction  of 
their  superiority.  As  far  as  Wales  was  con- 
cerned, he  simply  did  not  consider  this  country 
of  Arthur,  of  bard  and  of  poet,  this  country  of 
an  indestructible  nationalism,  worthy  his  serious 
interest.  Had  he  lived  in  Shakespeare's  day  his 
concern  would  have  been  much  greater,  his  re- 
spect more  solicitous. 

On  the  first  visit  to  Mr.  Myddleton  the  pre- 
servation of  the  Welsh  language  had  been  dis- 
cussed. In  his  journal  for  that  date  Dr.  Johnson 
wrote,  "  Myddleton  is  the  only  man,  who,  in 
Wales,  has  talked  to  me  of  literature."  He  was 
visiting  people  who,  almost  universally,  were 
supremely  indifferent  to  Wales  and  all  things 
Welsh.  In  other  words,  he  was  visiting  the 
upper  or  ruling  classes.   It  is  not  so  many  years 

[  8i  ] 


Gallant  Little  Wales 


ago  that  the  children  of  the  gentry  were  still 
not  allowed  to  learn  Welsh  for  fear  their  Eng- 
lish accent  might  be  spoiled.  Now,  happily, 
they  are  taught  Welsh,  a  fact  which  not  only 
improves  the  relationship  between  them  and 
the  working  classes,  but  also  is  contributing 
generously  to  a  revival  of  all  that  is  best  in 
Welsh  song  and  literature.  Even  a  prince  of  the 
blood  royal  learns  Welsh  and  speaks  it. 

Dr.  Johnson  was  in  Wales  at  a  time  when 
the  intellectual  interests  of  Welshmen  were 
most  flagging,  that  is,  just  before  the  introduc- 
tion of  the  Welsh  Sunday  Schools  which,  with 
their  educational  rather  than  exclusively  re- 
ligious function,  gave  impulse  to  a  period  of 
modern  Welsh  literature.  Not  only  in  chron- 
ology but  also  in  importance,  the  establish- 
ment of  the  Welsh  Sunday  School  must  take 
precedence  of  Lady  Charlotte  Guest's  transla- 
tions of  the  "  Mabinogion."  Yet  what  Macpher- 
son's  "  Ossian  "  did  for  Scotland  in  the  seventies 
in  arousing  interest.  Lady  Guest  did  for  Wales 
in  1838.  It  is  possible,  if  one  can  presuppose 
the  impossible,  that  with  these  translations  in 
hand  Dr.  Johnson's  journal  would  have  been 
very  different.  However,  one  is  fearful  that,  forti- 

[82] 


Dr.  Johnson  s  Tour  of  North  Wales 

fied  even  with  Lady  Charlotte's  beautiful  trans- 
lations, there  would  have  been  passages  in  the 
authentic  Welsh  "Mabinogion"  as  angrily  re- 
jected by  him  as  Macpherson's  imposture  was. 
Johnson  said  that  he  never  could  get  the  mean- 
ing of  an  Erse  song  explained  to  him.  He  asked 
a  young  lady  who  had  sung  such  a  song  what 
it  was  about,  and  she  replied  that  it  was  for  the 
entertainment  of  the  company.  He  explained 
that  it  was  its  meaning  he  could  not  under- 
stand, whereupon  she  answered  that  it  was  a  love 
song.  And  that  was  all  the  intelligence,  Johnson 
said,  that  he  could  get. 

There  was  strong  probability,  as  a  Welsh 
traveller  in  1682  expressed  it,  of  Welsh  being 
"English'd  out  of  Wales,  as  Latin  was  barbar- 
ously Goth'd  out  of  Italy."  From  the  time  of 
the  Great  Rebellion,  however,  the  condition  of 
the  Welsh  language  began  to  improve,  and  it 
is  possible  greatly  to  overrate  the  difficulties 
with  which  Johnson  met  in  coming  to  know  the 
life  of  the  people.  Impatiently  he  had  exclaimed, 
"Let  us,  if  we  do  talk,  talk  about  something; 
men  and  women  are  my  subject  of  enquiry ;  let 
us  see  how  these  differ  from  those  we  have  left 
behind."  But  from  any  evidence  in  his  journal 

[83  ] 


Gallant  Little  Wales 


Johnson  did  not  consider  it  worth  his  while  to 
discover  how  much  the  Welsh  really  do  differ 
from  the  English.  The  visible  physical  fact  with 
which  he  was  confronted  was  the  dark-haired, 
dark-eyed,  dark-complexioned  Welshman  of 
medium  stature,  very  Spanish-looking,  some- 
times almost  Oriental.  What  he  heard  were 
voices  quite  distinct  from  the  English,  quiet  and 
pure  in  enunciation.  What  he  must  have  felt 
—  if  he  felt  the  Welsh  as  distinct,  except  in  in- 
feriority —  was  a  race  as  different  as  the  south 
is  from  the  north,  sensitive,  imaginative,  excit- 
able, deeply  impressionable  to  everything  that  is 
beautiful,  as  capable  of  the  "  howl"  as  the  Irish, 
yet  more  critical,  of  an  intellectual  independ- 
ence which  makes  Roman  Catholicism  unwel- 
come to  the  Welsh,  with  a  shrewdness  that  is 
the  logic  of  success  in  money-getting,  a  captive 
race  with  minds  which  can  never  be  servile. 
Yet  in  a  letter  to  Boswell  announcing  that  he 
had  visited  five  out  of  the  six  counties  of  North 
Wales,  Dr.  Johnson  wrote:  "Wales  is  so  little 
different  from  England,  that  it  offers  nothing  to 
the  speculation  of  the  traveller."  Johnson  was 
capable,  too,  of  taunting  Boswell  with  the  sterility 
of  Scotland.  He  had  a  certain  strain  of  contrari- 

[84] 


Dr.  Johnson  s  Tour  of  North  Wales 

ness  in  him,  "  tonic  "  some  call  it,  which  made 
him  emphasize  the  undesirable  features  of  a 
country  or  a  personality.  Three  years  after  this 
journey,  forgetting  even  his  interest  in  castles, 
he  was  able  to  say :  "Except  the  woods  oiBachy- 
craigh^  what  is  there  in  Wales  that  can  fill  the 
hunger  of  ignorance,  or  quench  the  thirst  of 
curiosity?" 


V 

Welsh  Folk- Lore 

Many  and  attractively  full  of  poetry  are  the  su- 
perstitions still  living  in  the  solitary  Welsh  hills. 
One  day  I  encountered  a  hillside  woman  while 
we  were  looking  for  a  hilltop  church.  She  was  in 
great  distress,  breathless  and  flapping  her  apron. 
Now  there  is  a  Welsh  legend  that  bees  were 
created  in  paradise,  and  her  bees  were  running 
away.  Apparently,  this  worldly,  heartless  creature 
had  no  intention,  if  an  apron  could  prevent  it, 
of  allowing  her  bees  to  go  back  to  heaven.  Fairy- 
land is  Cambria  in  Wales,  if  you  will  let  me 
juggle  with  my  words  in  this  fashion,  for  I  do 
not  know  how  to  express  it  otherwise.  And 
yearning  for  continued  love  and  life,  even  with 
the  bees,  is  the  breath  of  the  phantom  and  spirit 
world  called  "Fairyland."  Although  the  instinct 
of  faith  in  the  supernatural  may  be  primitive 
and  the  Welsh  of  to-day  highly  civilized,  yet 
supernatural  belief  is  still  ineradicated  among 
the  people.  Their  childish  tales,  often  so  hard  to 
understand,  are  full  of  a  haunting  race  life.  Con- 
[86] 


Welsh  Folk- Lore 


viction,  for  example,  that  fairies  are  the  souls 
of  dead  mortals,  mortals  not  good  enough  for 
heaven  or  bad  enough  for  hell,  —  at  least  the 
thought  is  a  gentle  one,  and  as  such  not  to  be 
despised.  And  to  their  gentle  masters  the  fairies 
themselves  seem  to  have  given  an  uncommon 
devotion.  If  fairies  are  troublesome,  one  can 
sometimes  get  rid  of  them  by  changing  one's 
residence.  But  not  so  with  these  Welsh  fairies ! 
Like  the  family  servant  for  whom  every  one 
longs,  they  stick  closer  than  a  brother.  Even 
going  into  England  will  not  drive  Welsh  fairies 
away  from  those  they  love.  Matthew  Arnold 
should  have  considered  this  when  he  was  study- 
ing the  Celtic  temperament,  and  denouncing  it 
for  its  inconstancy,  for  the  essence  of  all  that  is 
Celtic  is  the  Welsh  fairy. 

One  is  a  little  of  the  opinion  of  the  youth, 
who,  when  he  first  saw  the  Lady  of  the  Lake, 
thought  she  was  a  goose.  That  is  what  I  thought 
of  my  first  fairies,  and  still  think  of  them.  Yet, 
in  this  day  and  generation,  it  is  something  to 
have  seen  a  fairy  at  all !  It  was  dusk,  and  I  had 
come  through  a  tiny  hill  village,  where  white 
cottages  were  gleaming  in  the  dark,  and  light 
shining  on  garden  walls.  It  was  so  quiet  that  I 

[  87  ] 


Gallant  Little  Wales 


could  hear  pine  needles  dropping  on  the  ground, 
and  the  wind  talking  in  the  branches  of  the  rain, 
still  miles  distant  upon  the  sea.  The  noise  of  a 
tardy  bumblebee,  hurrying  homeward  in  the 
dark,  fairly  boomed  in  my  ears,  and  the  sounds 
of  shale  rock  slipping  down  the  hillside  came 
and  went  mysteriously.  Through  lighted  win- 
dows I  caught  glimpses  of  evening  comfort,  of 
a  bright  fire  glowing  with  peat,  whose  aroma 
was  everywhere  on  the  soft  air,  of  dressers  and 
tridarns,  brave  with  countless  ornaments,  of  a 
grandfather's  clock  whose  wise  old  face  shone 
with  light,  of  children's  heads  about  the  supper 
table. 

But  a  higher  hill  was  calling  me,  and  an  ad- 
venture of  whose  nature  I  had  not  even  dreamed. 
I  turned  off  the  road  by  a  Wesleyan  chapel 
and  mounted  a  steep  path.  Up,  up,  up  I  went 
around  the  side  of  a  green  hill,  sometimes  listen- 
ing to  the  night  stir  of  the  birds,  sometimes 
startled  by  a  brown  rabbit,  leaping  for  cover.  Out 
beyond,  the  mountains  of  Snowdonia  were  piled 
height  on  height,  all  washed  in  sepia  depth 
upon  a  sky,  moonless,  but  brilliant  with  stars. 
I  hastened,  for  I  was  eager  to  reach  the  pine- 
crowned  summit.  Up  there  would  be  no  sound 
[88] 


Welsh  Folk-Lore 


except  the  wind  in  the  trees,  and  once  in  a  while 
some  homely  noises  from  the  villages  in  the 
valley  below :  the  sharp  bark  of  a  dog,  the  bleat- 
ing of  a  lamb,  the  closing  of  some  cottage  door, 
a  resonant  "  good-night." 

Once  on  the  hilltop,  I  lay  down  to  rest,  list- 
ening to  the  soft  flight  and  hooting  of  some 
young  owl,  and  feeling  the  grass  cool  and  deep 
to  my  head  and  hands.  As  I  lay  there,  eyes  half 
closed,  I  heard  some  one  coming  up  the  path. 
Nearer  and  nearer  drew  uncertain  footsteps  and 
the  tapping  of  a  cane  over  loose  stones.  I  sat  up 
quickly,  and  there  in  the  dark  was  an  old  woman, 
a  cane  in  one  hand,  a  basket  in  the  other.  Some- 
thing cried  piteously  from  the  basket  and  I 
asked  what  it  was.  The  old  crone  said  that  it 
was  a  kitten,  and  showed  me  a  sack  in  which 
something  else,  tied  up,  squirmed  and  mewed. 
But  she  did  not  open  the  bag.  After  a  due 
amount  of  greeting  and  curtseying,  the  old  wo- 
man went  on.  I  noticed  that  she  kept  looking 
back  as  she  followed  the  path  over  the  crown 
of  the  hill. 

My  attention  was  diverted  from  her  by  the 
approach  of  more  footsteps.  It  was  a  boy,  a  very 
large  boy,  and  in  his  hand  I  could  clearly  see  a 

[89] 


Gallant  Little  Wales 


school-bag,  ridiculously  small  for  such  a  big  lad, 
in  which  he,  too,  carried  something.  Behind  him 
walked  a  huge  dog,  feathered  on  back  and  legs 
so  heavily  that  his  shaggy  hair  trailed  on  the 
ground.  I  heard  something  cry  from  the  little 
bag,  and  I  asked  what  it  was.  The  lad  replied 
in  Welsh  that  it  was  a  kitten.  I  could  see  him 
smiling  as  he  stood  his  ground.  Except  in  Welsh 
there  was  nothing  further  for  me  to  do.  Under 
the  most  favourable  circumstances  it  is  a  great 
deal  to  do  anything  at  all  in  Welsh,  and  with 
my  heart  beating  rapidly  and  my  tongue  grow- 
ing dry,  I  did  not  feel  that  I  could  do  anything 
more  in  any  language.  We  were  silent  while 
the  little  thing  kept  on  "miaowing,"  and  this 
boy,  like  an  ordinary  boy,  hitched  about  for  a 
few  moments,  kicking  stones  from  the  path,  and 
then  went  on,  followed  by  the  dog. 

Erect  and  uneasy,  I  continued  to  sit  up.  Just 
as  dog  and  boy  were  out  of  sight  I  heard  some 
one  else  stumbling  up  the  path  and  a  faint 
kitten-like  noise.  I  began  to  be  afraid  of  those 
kittens  being  carried  one  after  one  over  this 
desolate  hilltop.  It  suggested  a  little  the  en- 
chantments in  the  "  Mabinogion,"  only  in  the 
"  Mabinogion  "  mice  and  not  kittens  played  the 
t9o] 


Welsh  Folk' Lore 


leading  part.  I  got  up  and  fled  before  this  ex- 
perience should  have  a  chance  to  become  the 
beginning  of  some  enchantment.  But  already 
I  felt  as  if  a  spell  were  upon  me,  and  even  when 
I  was  quite  far  away  from  the  kitteny  place,  I 
was  still  in  a  strange  condition  of  excitement. 
One  feels  a  natural  dislike  for  any  sort  of  hilltop 
enchantments,  and  I  did. 

I  was  making  considerable  speed  in  myWelsh- 
soled  boots  and  feeling  more  like  an  ordinary 
person,  when  the  path  took  a  sharp  turn  and  I 
saw  something  strange  in  front  of  me.  Down 
below  ran  the  road,  hard  enough  to  be  a  fact, 
and  lighted  by  the  clear  glow  of  the  stars. 
If  only  one  could  always  be  sure  of  what  is 
coming  in  this  world,  such  a  turning  as  I  had 
taken  would  be  like  Keats's  beauty,  "  a  joy  for- 
ever." But  alas !  close  at  my  own  right  hand, 
very  distinct,  unmistakably  clear,  rose  something 
my  eyes  had  never  met  before  :  a  chimney  with 
no  house  attached  to  it.  And  on  the  treeless 
meadow  in  front  of  this  apparition  I  saw  the  old 
woman  leaning  on  her  stick  and  the  boy  sitting 
beside  his  dog.  Clearly  the  spell  had  worked. 
But  how  I  struggled  out  from  under  this  en-» 
chantment  is  another  story. 

[91] 


Gallant  Little  Wales 


The  least  credulous  may  look  at  fairy  and 
goblin  food  in  the  woods  and  fields,  and  their 
gloves,  the  fox-glove,  growing  beside  the  road. 
And  their  animals,  their  sheep,  their  horses,  their 
dogs  are  visible  on  many  a  dim  hillside.  The 
Welsh  speak  of  these  little  people  as  the  fair 
folk  or  family — "y  Tylwyth  Teg."  And  well 
do  they  deserve  the  name.  Sometimes  they  are 
spoken  of  as  the  fair  folk  of  the  wood  or  the 
fair  folk  of  the  mine.  In  gowns  of  green,  blue, 
white,  and  scarlet  they  dance  on  moonlit  nights. 
If  they  like  you  they  will  bestow  blessings  on 
you,  and  are  frequently  called  "  mothers'  bless- 
ings" because  mothers  are  glad  to  have  such 
little  ones.  But  if  one  speaks  unkindly  of  them, 
one  will  get  into  trouble.  And  here,  whether  one 
be  talking  of  fairies  or  of  mortals,  who  cannot 
always  avenge  themselves  as  readily  as  fairies,  is 
a  lesson  worth  remembering. 

Elves,  according  to  the  Welsh,  —  I  have  seen 
only  a  picture  of  one  drawn  by  a  Welsh  miner, 
—  also  live  on  goblin  food  and  wear  foxgloves 
when  they  have  any  particularly  hard  work  to 
do.  The  Queen  of  the  Elves  is  none  other  than 
the  Shakespearean  fairy  spoken  of  by  Mercutio, 
who  comes 

[92] 


H 


H 


Welsh  Folk- Lore 


"  In  shape  no  bigger  than  an  agate  stone 
On  the  forefinger  of  an  alderman." 

No  one  who  has  not  seen  a  fairy  can  have  any 
idea  how  difficult  it  is  to  draw  the  line  between 
history  and  story.  The  difficulties  of  the  folk- 
lorist  are  as  nothing,  —  for  his  is  the  scientific 
spirit, — compared  with  the  trouble  the  real 
fairy  hunter  has  in  the  open.  Nowadays,  of 
course,  no  one  believes  everything  or  possibly 
anything  he  is  told.  But  in  times  past  mankind 
seems  to  have  been  gifted  with  a  more  intimate 
faith  in  and  knowledge  of  some  things  than  we 
have  to-day.  For  example,  people  used  to  know 
Satan  better  and  were  more  afraid  of  him.  An 
honest  Welsh  farmer  saw  him  lying  across  the 
road  with  his  head  on  one  wall  and  his  tail  on 
the  other.  The  Devil  was  moaning  horribly, 
which  in  this  uncomfortable  position  would  not 
be  strange  for  any  one. 

In  criticism  of  Welsh  fairies  there  is  one  thing 
to  be  said.  They  not  only  have  a  rather  prac- 
tical-joking sort  of  humour,  but  they  also  have 
very  little  sense  of  equity.  A  man  may  do  his 
best  for  them,  and  then  they  repay  him  in  the 
end  by  a  trick.  A  Welsh  piper  was  coming 
home  in  the  gray  of  the  evening,  and  had  to 


Gallant  Little  Wales 


cross  a  little  running  stream,  from  which  he  saw 
only  the  shadowed  hillside  and  heard  only  the 
voice  of  the  wind.  But  when  he  had  travelled 
beyond  the  hill,  music  became  audible,  and, 
turning,  instead  of  the  knoll  he  had  been  look- 
ing at,  there  was  a  great  castle  with  lights  blaz- 
ing and  music  playing  and  the  sound  of  dancing 
feet.  He  went  back  and  was  caught  in  the  pro- 
cession coming  out  from  its  doors  and  taken  in 
to  pipe  to  them.  He  piped  for  a  day  or  so,  but 
he  was  anxious  to  return  to  his  people,  and  the 
fairies  seemed  to  understand.  They  said  they 
would  let  him  go  if  he  would  play  a  favourite 
tune.  He  played  his  best,  they  danced  fast  and 
furiously.  And  at  last  he  was  set  free  on  the 
dark  hillside,  with  only  the  voice  of  the  wind  for 
company.  He  went  home  hastily,  but  when  he 
entered  his  father's  house  no  one  knew  him. 
An  old  man  awoke  from  a  doze  by  the  fire, 
and  said  that  he  had  heard,  when  a  boy,  of  a 
piper  who  had  gone  away  on  a  quiet  evening 
and  never  come  back  again.  That  was  over  a 
hundred  years  ago. 

Perhaps  there  is  no  reason  why  the  fairies,  as 
well  as  poor  mortals,  should  not  be  allowed  a 
natural  and  happy  alternation  between  badness 

[94] 


Welsh  Folk- Lore 


and  goodness.  Metaphorically  speaking,  they 
are  not  the  only  creatures  who  steal  money  and 
butter  and  cheese,  and  who  whisk  away  help- 
less, unbaptized  infants.  Doubtless  a  New  Eng- 
land Mather  —  those  early  New  England  Ma- 
thers were  hard  on  babies  —  would  say  that  an 
infant  who  remained  unbaptized  long  enough  to 
be  discovered  by  a  fairy  deserved  to  be  stolen. 
Such  an  idea  could  have  flourished  only  in 
New  England.  As  if  it  were  not  bad  enough 
to  face  the-survival-of-the-fittest  test  in  this  life 
without  carrying  it  over  into  heaven !  I,  for  one, 
am  not  disposed  to  find  fault  with  the  fairies 
when,  as  happened  in  Beddgelert,  they  led  a  man 
into  beautiful  lodgings.  To  know  what  a  tempta- 
tion a  beautiful  apartment  might  become,  one 
must  have  lived,  as  I  have,  in  that  little  moun- 
tain-cupped village.  When  the  man  awoke  in 
the  morning  after  a  peaceful  night's  rest,  he  was 
sleeping  on  a  swamp  with  a  clump  of  rushes 
for  his  pillow.  If  he  had  been  a  nervous,  sleep- 
less, modern  man,  instead  of  finding  fault  as  he 
did,  he  would  have  been  grateful  for  the  night's 
sound  rest  and  forthwith  tried  the  swamp  again. 
After  this  there  would  have  been  a  "  Swamp 
Cure  for  Insomnia." 

[95] 


Gallant  Little  Wales 


There  are  ghosts,  too,  in  Wales,  but  they  are 
rather  spiritless  creatures,  much  easier  to  catch 
and  not  so  tricksy  as  the  fairies.  Nor  do  they 
select  prickly  furze  and  stony  hilltops  as  their 
hiding-places.  But  on  the  whole  they  are  diffi- 
cult to  subdue,  especially  the  farm  ghosts. 
While  the  servants  are  busy  making  the  butter, 
the  ghost  or  spirit  frequently  throws  something 
unclean  into  the  milk  or  sends  the  pans  spin- 
ning around  like  mad.  In  one  farm  the  farmer 
offered  a  reward  of  five  pounds  to  any  one  who 
would  lay  their  particularly  lively  spirit.  Sev- 
eral people  tried  it,  including  an  aged  priest  in 
whose  face  the  impertinent  ghost  waved  a  wo^ 
man's  bonnet.  Finally,  the  Established  Church 
being  unable  to  cope  with  this  sprightly  situa- 
tion, an  Independent  minister  from  Llanarmon 
coaxed  the  ghost  into  the  barn.  There  the  spirit, 
still  unsubdued,  turned  into  a  lion,  a  mastiff, 
and  other  ferocious  beasts,  but  in  no  incarnation 
could  it  do  any  harm  to  the  Independent  Grif- 
fiths.  It  became  discouraged,  and  the  minister 
persuaded  the  poor  thing  to  appear  in  the  form 
of  a  fly.  Perhaps  in  this  incarnation  the  wretched 
thing  still  had  hopes  of  revenge.  However,  the 
intrepid  Griffiths  was  too  much  for  it,  and  it 
[96] 


Welsh  Folk- Lore 


was  captured  in  a  tobacco  box  and  borne  off, 
never  to  trouble  the  farmer  any  more. 

The  death  portents  in  Cambria  reveal  all  the 
strangeness  and  lawlessness  of  the  Celtic  imagina- 
tion. No  one  who  does  not  know  the  Welsh 
hills,  who  has  not  been  on  them  day  after  day, 
can  feel  the  significance  of  these  death  portents. 
One  must  have  travelled  on  the  top  and  edge  of 
the  Welsh  mountain  world  to  understand, — 
have  looked  out  upon  a  sea  of  hills  gray  and  bar- 
ren in  their  utter  colourlessness,  and  down  upon 
valleys  like  the  valley  of  the  shadow  of  death. 
There  abyss  and  altitude  are  alike  full  of  ter- 
rors, of  mist  before  which  mind  and  step  falter, 
of  an  Unknown  which  presses  home  in  bodily 
anguish,  which  distorts  the  vision  and  strikes 
upon  the  ear  with  the  outcry  of  bewildered 
souls.  It  is  not  strange,  then,  that  the  Welsh 
have  the  most  horrible  of  banshees.  It  is  known 
as  the  Gwrach  y  Rhybin,  the  old  hag  of  the  mist; 
and  a  Cyhyraeth  which  moans  dolefully  in  the 
night  but  is  never  seen;  and  a  Tolaeth  which 
groans  or  sings  or  saws,  or  tramps  with  its  feet, 
and  is  also  unseen.  And  there  are,  besides,  the 
"Dogs  of  Hell"  and  the  "Dogs  of  the  Sky" 
and  the  "Corpse  Candle"   and   the  "Goblin 

[97] 


Gallant  Little  Wales 


Funeral," — all  of  them  portents  of  death.  Sev- 
eral years  ago  I  came  very  near  seeing  one  of 
these  portentous  dogs.  I  was  on  a  treeless  up- 
land pasture,  rich  with  ruby  like  a  deep  agate, 
with  lavender,  flecked  with  emerald-green  as 
musk  is  freaked  with  brown ;  purple,  pink,  and 
opalescent  in  the  sunshine  that  came  and  went. 
There  were  black  sheep  and  white  in  that  pas- 
ture, I  remember,  and  some  little  lambs  that 
straddled  with  surprise.  One  rose,  stretching  and 
curling  its  tail  with  the  delicious  energy  of  wak- 
ing from  sleep.  I  looked  down  what  seemed  like 
a  particoloured  gulf  of  greensward  into  valleys 
where  men  and  cattle  had  become  dots  in  size, 
and  up  to  more  fern  and  heather  and  altitudes 
where  the  curlew  cried.  It  was  as  I  looked  up 
that  I  saw  an  impressively  large  black  dog  that 
went  through  an  impossibly  small  sheep-hole  in 
a  sheep-wall.  But  a  wisp  of  mist  came  over 
the  Welsh  mountainside,  and  one  never  makes 
an  effort  to  see  that  sort  of  thing  or  to  run  after 
it.  Hunting  rollicking  elves  and  lightfoot  fairies 
is  quite  a  different  matter ! 

One  of  the  most  beautiful  legends  in  the  lolo 
Manuscripts  is  the  story  of  one  of  these  death 
portents.  There  was  a  lord  rich  in  houses  and 

[98] 


Welsh  Folk- Lore 


land  and  gold.  Every  luxury  of  life  was  his  for 
the  asking.  One  night  he  heard  a  voice  cry  out 
distinctly  three  times,  "  The  greatest  and  richest 
man  of  this  parish  shall  perish  to-night."  He 
was  aware  that  there  was  no  other  man  so  great 
or  rich  as  he,  and  he  sent  for  the  physician  and 
prepared  to  die.  But  the  night  passed  and  day 
came  and  he  still  lived.  At  sunrise  he  heard  the 
bell  tolling  and  knew  that  some  one  must  have 
died,  and  he  sent  to  enquire  who  it  was.  It  was 
an  old  blind  beggar  who  had  asked  for  charity 
at  the  lord's  gate  and  been  refused.  Then  this 
great  lord  saw  that  the  voice  had  come  as  a 
warning  to  him,  that  his  riches  were  as  nothing 
in  comparison  with  the  treasure  and  wealth 
which  the  blind  man  had  in  the  kingdom  of 
heaven.  He  accepted  the  warning  and  relieved 
all  who  were  poor  or  in  need.  When  he  died, 
angels  were  heard  to  sing  him  a  welcome,  and 
after  his  death  he  was  buried,  as  he  had  asked 
to  be,  in  the  blind  beggar's  grave. 

Of  hags  and  witches  there  used  to  be  far  too 
many  in  Wales.  Shakespeare  tells  all  one  needs 
to  know  of  them.  For  some  reasons,  hidden  to 
us,  he  had  peculiarly  intimate  and  extensive 
information  concerning  Celtic  folk-lore.  Mac- 


Gallant  Little  Wales 


beth,  speaking  of  witches,  says, ''  I  have  learned 
by  the  perfectest  report,  they  have  more  in  them 
than  mortal  knowledge.  When  I  burned  in  de- 
sire to  question  them  further,  they  made  them- 
selves air,  into  which  they  vanished."  These 
witches  did  not  hesitate  to  throw  even  portions 
of  human  beings  into  seething  cauldrons :  — 

"  Round  about  the  cauldron  go; 
In  the  poisoned  entrails  throw." 

They  threw  in  other  things,  too,  as  the  third 
witch  tells  us,  — 

"  Scale  of  dragon,  tooth  of  wolf, 
Witches'  mummy,  maw  and  gulf 
Of  the  ravin'd  salt-sea  shark, 
Root  of  hemlock  digged  i'  the  dark, 
Liver  of  blaspheming  Jew, 
Gall  of  goat,  and  slips  of  yew 
Siiver'd  in  the  moon's  eclipse, 
Nose  of  Turk,  and  Tartar's  lips." 

In  Wales  the  knowledge  which  witches  pos- 
sessed they  did  not  use  for  the  good  of  others, 
but  for  their  hurt;  they  tormented  children  and 
animals,  they  plagued  the  hard-working  and  in- 
dustrious, and  upset  the  Welsh  household.  In 
Cambria  there  are  witches  unlike  any  I  have 

[  loo  ] 


Cxi] 


•J 

O 

< 

w 

o 
u 


Welsh  Folk-Lork^- 


ever  heard  of,  witches  that  will  cause  cows  to 
sit  down  like  cats  before  the  fire.  No  wonder 
the  Welsh  farmer  keeps  his  Bible  handy  in  the 
kitchen  chest,  and  runs  for  it  post-haste,  to  read 
his  seated  cow  a  chapter  and  unwitch  her !  No 
wonder  that  with  such  witches  conjurors  are 
needed, — if  for  no  other  reason,  then  to  unseat 
the  cows ;  and  that  country  folk  pluck  the  snap- 
dragon to  protect  themselves  from  these  hags ! 
No  wonder  the  peasants  cross  their  doors,  even 
to  this  day  in  isolated  districts,  to  shield  them- 
selves, and  that  they  keep  horseshoes  and 
churchyard  earth  to  preserve  their  cottages  from 
spells ! 

No  matter  how  he  fumbled  the  English  fairies, 
Shakespeare  never  made  any  mistake  with  the 
Welsh.  He  understood  what  "mab"  meant, 
—  that  it  meant  a  little  thing, — just  as  "mab- 
cath"  in  Welsh  means  a  kitten,  or  "mab- 
inogi,"  the  singular  of  "  mabinogion,"  means  a 
tale  told  to  the  little  ones.  No  one  who  has  not 
seen  a  fairy  can  have  any  idea  how  difficult  it  is 
to  draw  the  line  between  history  and  story.  That 
some  of  the  fairies  seen  on  the  way  home  from 
fairs  and  from  patriotic  Eisteddfodau  —  Welsh 
national  festivals  of  poetry  and  song — are  due 

[lOl] 


'•  / ' :''.'?  f  QdUaht  Little  Wales 

to  ale,  cannot  be  disputed.  It  is  commonly  said 
that  the  Methodists  are  driving  the  fairies  out 
of  Cambria.  These  nonconformists  are  usually 
teetotallers.  However,  the  real  fairy  is  still  in 
Wales,  and  if  you  do  not  believe  me,  all  I  can 
say  is,  that  you  must  go  to  Wales  and  prove 
that  I  am  wrong.  But  perhaps  it  would  be  well 
before  you  take  the  journey  to  look  at  your 
foot,  for  if  you  find  you  have  not  a  foot  that 
water  runs  under,  it  is  best  for  you  not  to  go. 
So  runs  the  ancient  proverb,  and  without  that 
lucky  foot  no  fairy  shall  you  see. 

There  is  only  one  thing  that  can  possibly 
counteract  the  lack  of  a  requisite  instep  for  those 
who  desire  to  see  fairies,  and  that  is  eating  a 
good  deal  of  cheese.  I  do  not  know  why  this  is, 
but  I  do  kpow  that  as  far  back  as  one  can  go, 
much  further  back  than  Giraldus  Cambrensis 
or  even  Taliessin  or  the  archest  of  the  arch- 
druids,  Welsh  rarebit  and  roasted  cheese  have 
been  the  very  bread  of  Cymric  diet.  There  is  a 
story  in  John  Rastell's  "  Hundred  Mery  Talys," 
printed  in  the  sixteenth  century,  which  shows 
that  before  Shakespeare  came  to  elucidate  the 
Welsh  fairy,  this  question  of  cheese  and  the 
Welsh  had  been  duly  considered:  "I  fynde 
[  I02  ] 


Welsh  Folk-Lore 


wrytten  amonge  olde  gestes,  howe  God  mayde 
Saynt  Peter  porter  of  heuen,  and  that  God  of 
hys  goodnes,  sone  after  his  passyon,  suffered 
many  men  to  come  to  the  kyngdome  of  Heuen 
with  small  deseruynge;  at  whych  tyme  there 
was  in  heuen  a  great  companye  of  Welchmen, 
whyche  with  crakynge  and  babelynge  troubled 
all  the  other.  Wherefore  God  sayde  to  saynte 
Peter  that  he  was  wery  of  them,  and  that  he 
wold  fayne  haue  them  out  of  heuen.  To  whome 
Saynte  Peter  sayd:  Good  Lorde,  I  warrente 
you,  that  shall  be  done.  Wherefore  Saynt  Peter 
wente  out  of  heuen  gates  and  cried  with  a  loud 
voice  Cause  bobe  (caws  pob),  that  is  as  moche 
to  saye  as  rosted  chese,  whiche  thynge  the 
Welchemen  herynge,  ranne  out  of  heuen  a  great 
pace.  And  when  Saynt  Peter  saw  them  all  out, 
he  suddenly  wente  into  Heuen,  and  locked  the 
dore,  and  so  sparred  all  the  Welchmen  out." 

Undoubtedly  among  everything  Welsh,  even 
in  literature,  cheese  is  the  "  Open  Sesame."  It 
is  encountered  in  "  Mabinogion  "  romance  and 
beauty,  which  is  the  same  thing  as  to  say  cheese 
among  the  Welsh !  Is  there  any  other  folk-lore 
in  the  history  of  the  world  in  which  cheese  plays 
so  important  a  role  ?  It  might  in  German  folk- 
[  103  ] 


Gallant  Little  TFales 


lore,  but  the  fact  is  that  it  does  not.  Bread,  milk, 
the  juice  of  the  grape,  but  cheese?  No,  that  is 
h'fted  into  the  realm  of  imagination  and  of  a 
world-classic  only  in  Cambria.  Again  Shake- 
speare showed  his  surprisingly  accurate  know- 
ledge of  the  Celt  when  FalstafF  exclaims, 
"  Heaven  defend  me  from  that  Welsh  Fairy, 
lest  he  transform  me  to  a  piece  of  cheese ! " 


VI 

The  City  of  the  Prince  of  Wales 

From  the  heart  of  Snowdon,  some  thirteen  miles 
or  more,  on  roads  gray  with  altitudes  of  rock, 
green  with  shining  hillside  pastures  dotted  with 
white  sheep,  and  crossed  by  rushing  streams, 
we  walked  down  to  Carnarvon.  From  the  rocky 
heights  behind  it,  this  city  of  the  Prince  of 
Wales  —  the  great  castle  pile,  the  castle  walls 
enclosing  the  roofs  of  many  buildings  —  ex- 
tends to  the  edge  of  the  sea,  where  the  boom 
of  a  sailing-vessel  swinging  around  might  easily 
touch  the  castle  wall.  And  beyond  are  the 
ships,  the  Island  of  Anglesey,  Mona,  beloved 
in  all  Welsh  hearts,  peaceful  and  fertile,  with 
the  clouds  above. 

It  was  tranquil,  luxuriant,  established,  un- 
shaken by  anything  that  Time  had  been  able 
to  do.  There  still  were  the  walls  strong  to  de- 
fend; the  ships  from  the  sea,  and  cottage  chim- 
neys symbol  of  many  an  ingle  nook,  of  quiet 
firesides,  of  homely  comforts,  of  beloved  house- 
hold faces,  of  young  joy  and  ancient  peace. 

[  105  ] 


Gallant  Little  Whales 


"Caer  Seint  yn  Arfon!"  "Caer  ar  Fon," 
Carnarvon,  meaning  the  stronghold  opposite 
Mona  or  Anglesey.  "Caer,"  the  fortress,  the 
station,  where  in  Welsh  legend,  Elen,  the  great 
Welsh  road-maker,  was  sought  and  won  by  the 
Emperor  Maximus,  —  history  this,  or  tradition, 
which  makes  the  thirteenth  century  and  its 
Edwards  and  its  castles  seem  but  as  the  children 
of  yesterday.  I  thought  of  the  description  of  the 
old  city  in  the  "Dream  of  Maxen  Wledig,"  the 
dream  of  Maximus,  the  tyrant,  in  the  "Mabino- 
gion,"  one  of  the  classics  of  the  world  and  the 
classic  of  Welsh  literature.  In  that  dream  what 
did  that  Roman  Emperor  see  but  what  we  now 
saw?  "Valleys  he  saw,  and  steeps,  and  rocks 
of  wondrous  height,  and  rugged  precipices, 
never  yet  saw  he  the  like.  And  thence  he  be- 
held an  island  in  the  sea  facing  this  rugged  land. 
And  between  him  and  this  land  was  a  country 
of  which  the  plain  was  as  large  as  the  sea,  the 
mountain  as  vast  as  the  wood.  And  from  the 
mountain  he  saw  a  river  that  flowed  through 
the  land  and  fell  into  the  sea.  And  at  the  mouth 
of  the  river  he  beheld  a  castle,  the  fairest  that 
man  ever  saw,  and  the  gate  of  the  castle  was 
open,  and  he  went  into  the  castle." 

[  106] 


The  City  of  the  Prince  of  Wales 

Probably  "Helen  of  the  Roads"  is  the  legend- 
ary form  which  the  power  of  Rome  has  taken 
in  Wales.  On  either  side  of  the  mountains 
two  roads  run  their  straight  course  from  south 
to  north,  roads  that  were  marked  by  camps  in 
strategic  places  and  by  Roman  houses  of  stone 
in  the  sunshiny  reaches  of  the  hillsides.  Rome 
is  still  everywhere  in  Wales :  the  way  it  thinks 
in  politics,  its  speech,  its  literature,  —  and  no- 
where more  beautifully  than  in  the  "Dream  of 
Maxen  Wledig."  The  Britons  were  in  the  sorry 
plight  of  having  to  choose  between  enemies ; 
and  of  the  two,  Roman  or  heathen  invader,  the 
Romans  were  the  more  friendly  and  beneficent, 
for  the  wild  birds  of  the  heathen  carried  only 
fire  on  their  wings,  and  alighted  on  the  ripe 
grain  to  burn  it,  but  the  Romans  maintained 
order  and  conferred  power.  There  in  this  most 
ancient  city  of  Segontium  are  still  the  walls  of 
the  Roman  town  as  well  as  the  more  recent 
walls  of  the  castle  town,  and  a  remain  which 
suggests  a  Roman  hypocaust ;  there  coins  and 
other  fragments  of  this  ancient  empire  are  con- 
stantly being  found.  There  the  body  of  the 
father  of  Constantine,  the  first  Christian  Emperor, 
was  discovered  in  the  reign  of  Edward  I.  And 
[  107  ] 


Gallant  Little  Wales 


Edward,  brutal  and  practical  though  he  was, 
had  it  interred  with  pomp  and  honour  in  the 
church. 

The  very  size  and  strength  of  Carnarvon 
Castle  as  it  still  stands  shows  how  important 
strategically  Edward  thought  the  town.  That 
Roman  stronghold  which  was  there  before  the 
present  castle  must  have  been  beautiful,  too,  if 
in  the  legend  of  "Maxen  Wledig"  we  have 
recollection  of  what  it  was  like.  Both  in  the 
dream  and  with  the  messengers  whom  the  Em- 
peror sent,  they  traversed  the  land  until  they 
came  to  Snowdon.  "Behold,"  said  the  mes- 
sengers, "  the  rugged  land  that  our  master  saw." 
And  then  they  went  forward  until  they  saw 
Anglesey,  and  Aber  Sain,  and  a  castle  at  the 
mouth  of  the  river.  "And  in  the  castle  he  saw 
a  fair  hall,  of  which  the  roof  seemed  to  be  all 
gold,  the  walls  of  the  hall  seemed  to  be  entirely 
of  glittering  precious  gems,  the  doors  all  seemed 
to  be  of  gold.  Golden  seats  he  saw  in  the  hall, 
and  silver  tables.  And  on  a  seat  opposite  to  him 
he  beheld  two  auburn-haired  youths  playing  at 
chess.  He  saw  a  silver  board  for  the  chess,  and 
golden  pieces  thereon.  The  garments  of  the 
youths  were  of  jet  black  satin,  and  chaplets  of 

[  io8  ] 


The  City  of  the  Prince  of  Wales 

ruddy  gold  bound  their  hair,  whereon  were 
sparkling  jewels  of  great  price,  rubies  and  gems, 
alternating  with  imperial  stones.  .  .  .  And  be- 
side a  pillar  in  the  hall  he  saw  a  hoary-headed 
man,  in  a  chair  of  ivory,  with  the  figures  of  two 
eagles  in  ruddy  gold  thereon.  Bracelets  of  gold 
were  upon  his  arms,  many  rings  were  on  his 
hands  and  a  gold  torque  about  his  neck ;  and 
his  hair  was  bound  with  a  golden  diadem.  He 
was  of  powerful  aspect.  A  chessboard  of  gold 
was  before  him,  and  a  rod  of  gold,  and  a  steel 
file  in  his  hand.  And  he  was  carving  out  chess- 
men. And  he  saw  a  maiden  sitting  before  him 
in  a  chair  of  ruddy  gold.  Not  more  easy  than 
to  gaze  upon  the  sun  when  brightest,  was  it  to 
look  upon  her  by  reason  of  her  beauty.  A  vest 
of  white  silk  was  upon  the  maiden,  with  clasps 
of  ruddy  gold  at  the  breast,  and  a  surcoat  of 
gold  tissue  upon  her,  and  a  frontlet  of  ruddy 
gold  upon  her  head,  and  rubies  and  gems  were 
in  the  frontlet,  alternating  with  pearls  and  im- 
perial stones.  And  a  girdle  of  ruddy  gold  was 
around  her.  She  was  the  fairest  sight  that  man 
ever  beheld."  What  more  beautiful  in  any 
castle  to  be,  in  any  modern  royal  pageant  of 
to-day  or  to-morrow,  could  there  be  than  this 
[  109  ] 


Gallant  Little  Whales 


Helen  of  Wales  of  whom  the  Emperor  dreamed 
and  whom  he  sought  and  found?  Unlike  the 
other  Grecian  Helen,  she  left,  not  records  of 
war  and  strife  behind  to  attest  her  beauty,  but 
serviceable  roads  over  many  of  which  we  may 
still  travel  to-day. 

With  the  exception  of  Alnwick,  Carnarvon 
Castle  is  the  finest  in  Great  Britain.  It  is  a  won- 
derful creation  of  man,  a  thing  of  strength  and 
beauty,  of  might  and  grace ;  its  decorated  castel- 
lated architecture,  facing  two  ways  towards  the 
sea,  giving  it  a  visionary  appearance  of  charm 
wholly  lacking  in  the  bulky  massiveness  of  Con- 
way and  Harlech,  —  magic  casements,  these,  as 
I  said  before,  — 

"  opening  on  the  foam 
Of  perilous  seas,  in  faery  lands  forlorn." 

Its  thirteen  towers,  pentagonal,  hexagonal,  octa- 
gonal, perfect  in  their  slender  grace  from  walls 
ten  feet  thick.  About  one  hundred  and  fifty 
years  ago.  Pennant  wrote :  "This  town  is  justly 
the  boast  of  North  Wales,  for  the  beauty  of 
situation,  goodness  of  the  buildings,  regularity 
of  the  plan,  and,  above  all,  the  grandeur  of  the 
castle,  the  most  magnificent  badge  of  our  sub- 
jection." 

[no] 


The  City  of  the  Prince  of  JVales 

It  was  in  the  Eagle  Tower  in  which  Edward 
II,  the  first  Prince  of  Wales,  —  though  why  they 
should  forget  their  own  valiant  GrufFyd  ap 
Llewelyn  is  more  than  the  writer  can  see,  —  is 
supposed  to  have  been  born.  The  ivy  clings 
now  everywhere  upon  its  castellated  summits. 
Probably  the  famous  tower  was  so  called  be- 
cause of  the  bird  carved  upon  its  walls.  "Within 
a  little  dark  room  of  this  tower,"  says  Pennant, 
"  not  twelve  feet  long,  nor  eight  in  breadth,  was 
bom  Edward  II ;  so  little,  in  those  days,  did  a 
royal  consort  consult  either  pomp  or  conven- 
iency."  Alas,  the  Prince  was  not  born  in  that 
little  tower  as  records  well  show !  The  Welsh 
refused  to  acknowledge  the  English  king  unless 
he  would  dwell  in  Wales.  This  was  impossible; 
so  their  demands  were  modified  to  the  require- 
ment that  the  prince  placed  over  them  must  be 
of  their  own  nation  and  language  and  of  an  un- 
blamable life.  Queen  Eleanor  was  about  to  be 
confined,  and,  although  it  was  midwinter  and 
harsh  weather,  the  king  sent  for  her  and  she  was 
brought  to  Carnarvon  where  the  first  English 
Prince  of  Wales  was  born.  As  soon  as  Edward 
heard  that  the  child  was  born  he  called  the 
Welsh  nobility  together  at  Rhuddlan,  ostensibly 

[III] 


Gallant  Little  IFales 


to  consult  about  the  public  good  and  safety  of 
all  Wales.  Once  there,  he  told  them  that  in 
case  he  had  to  leave  the  country  he  would  ap- 
point in  his  place  a  prince  who  would  fulfil  the 
conditions  they  had  given,  provided  they  would 
obey  him,  naming  one  who  had  been  *'born  in 
Wales,  could  speak  no  English,  and  whose  life 
and  conversation  nobody  could  stain,"  and  then 
named  his  own  son  just  born  in  Carnarvon.  In 
his  seventeenth  year,  1301,  this  Prince  of  Wales 
was  formally  invested,  even  as  in  1911  another 
Prince  of  Wales  was  endued,  "  with  a  chaplet 
of  gold  round  his  head,  a  golden  ring  on  his 
finger,  and  a  silver  sceptre  in  his  hand."  The 
title  is  never  inherited,  but  is  conferred  by  spe- 
cial creation  and  investiture. 

Unfortunate  for  romantic  tradition  is  it  that 
Edward  II  built  the  Eagle  Tower  and  was  not 
born  in  it.  But  these  are  the  facts  of  the  case, 
and  the  people  of  Carnarvon  know  them  per- 
fectly well.  Undoubtedly,  however,  this  prince 
was  born  in  the  town.  One  feels  indignant  some- 
times, perhaps  often,  in  Wales  at  the  value  set 
upon  celebrity,  the  celebrity  which  "  pays  " ;  at 
Denbigh  the  proud  claiming  of  Stanley,  the  ex- 
plorer, where  the  poor  lad  was  knocked  about 

[112] 


I 

mm 

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^     1    '  1 

■t 

^  ml'   a 

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1^ 


PC 
PQ 

O 

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PC 

o 

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The  City  of  the  Prince  of  Wales 

and  abused  worse  than  some  cur  of  the  streets ; 
the  exploitation  of  Dr.  Johnson,  who  happened 
to  be  with  Mrs.  Piozzi  in  the  vicinity  of  Den- 
bigh for  a  few  days;  and  then  this  English 
Prince  of  Wales  whom  the  Welsh  insist  upon 
having  born  in  the  tower  which  he  himself  built! 
Ah,  well, — 

"  Why  should  not  gallant  TafFy 
Have  his  relics  and  his  bones, 
Llewelyns  and  Cadwallos, 
And  GrifFyevanjones  ? " 

And  we  must  just  be  willing  to  let  this  cher- 
ished Eagle  Tower  be  an  indispensable  Welsh 
bone  —  or  relic  of  contention. 

The  gateway  of  Carnarvon  Castle  is  very  im- 
pressive, of  great  size  and  strength,  as  are  most 
of  these  North  Wales  castles,  but,  as  is  not  the 
case  with  most  of  them,  with  romantic  grace 
added.  Vines  clamber  up  it  and  over  it,  cracks 
etch  the  portions  of  the  walls  which  are  bare. 
Above  the  gateway,  in  its  niche  high  out  of 
reach  of  destructive  enemies,  is  the  figure  of 
Edward  II;  and  to  the  right  and  to  the  left 
graceful  turrets  rise  above  the  walls.  Low  on 
the  face  of  the  gateway  tower  are  slits  for  de- 
fence, above  them  at  a  safe  altitude  are  windows  ^ 

[  113  ] 


Gallant  Little  Wales 


with  part  of  the  tracery  still  intact.  This  en- 
trance was  besieged  by  Glendower  in  the  fif- 
teenth century  and  by  a  Parliamentary  army 
in  the  seventeenth.  Bitter  battles  were  fought 
about  the  old  gate  and  in  the  town  beyond.  One 
day  at  Carnarvon,  when  the  peasant  folk  were 
holding  a  fair,  one  Madoc,  who  claimed  to  be 
the  son  of  Llewelyn,  burst  into  the  market 
square,  stormed  the  castle,  and  left  the  town  a 
smouldering  ruin. 

But  distant,  far,  far  distant  are  those  ancient 
days  of  primitive  strife.  And  as  I  turned  off  my 
Snowdon  road  to  enter  by  this  castle  gateway  I 
had  still  in  mind  the  peaceful,  prosperous  town 
through  which  I  had  come  and  the  ships  on  the 
sea  beyond  and  the  shining  island  shore  of 
Mona,  mother  of  Wales.  We  paid  our  entrance 
fee  and,  as  I  was  doing  that,  my  eye  caught 
sight  of  an  old  table  there  under  the  arch,  lit- 
tered with  books  for  sale.  I  looked  at  the  shim- 
mering green  grass  beyond  in  the  castle  court- 
yard down  upon  which  the  sun  was  flooding. 
We  were  in  no  haste.  I  wanted  to  dally,  and 
dally  I  did  by  the  bookstall,  my  hand  falling 
upon  a  first  edition  of  Goldsmith's  "  Bee",  to  be 
sold  at  sixpence !  We  paid  for  it,  and  I  could 

[  114] 


The  City  of  the  Prince  of  Wales 

hear  my  friend  saying,  "Do  you   suppose  it 
really  is  a  first  edition  ?  " 

My  fingers  between  the  leaves  of  this  book, 
I  turned  to  and  opened  "  A  City  Night-Peace," 
reading,  "  There  may  come  a  time  when  this 
temporary  solitude  may  be  made  continual,  and 
the  city  itself,  like  its  inhabitants,  fade  away, 
and  leave  a  desert  in  its  room."  Then  we  went 
through  into  the  sunshine  in  the  courtyard  be- 
yond, the  book  clasped  tightly  in  my  hand,  and 
the  hours  passed  as  in  a  dream.  There  was  the 
touch  of  time  made  visible,  there  was  life  car- 
ried forward  even  in  the  busy  chirping  of  the 
birds  upon  the  vine-covered  walls,  there  was 
sunshine  as  it  had  been  in  those  olden  but  not 
more  golden  days  than  this,  there  was  the  sound 
of  voices,  voices  beloved  so  long,  long  ago,  and 
speaking  again ;  there  was  joy,  and  sorrow,  living 
again  for  me  and  in  me;  there  once  more  was  all 
that  eager,  ardent,  daily  commonplace  of  human 
lives,  that  daily  friendliness  of  little  things  which 
makes  life  so  worth  the  living.  I  felt  it  in  all  about 
us,  woven  into  everything,  the  cheerful  noise  of 
birds,  the  voices  from  beyond  the  castle  walls, 
the  sunshine,  the  colour ;  and  more  and  more  the 
spirit  of  the  place  took  possession  of  me. 

[  "5] 


Gallant  Little  Wales 


Again  as  in  a  dream  within  a  dream  we  passed 
through  the  castle  gateway  out  into  the  town 
with  its  simple  old  houses,  its  little  shops  with 
their  signboards  and  gay  windows,  its  inns  and 
lodgings,  past  the  Welsh  children  playing  in 
the  streets  and  their  elders  going  gravely  to  and 
fro  about  their  business,  and  the  sleek  horses  and 
whirling  motors,  up  the  hill  past  Llanbeblig 
Church,  the  churchyard  Watts-Dunton  has  used 
as  part  of  the  setting  of  his  story  "Aylwin,"  and 
on  to  the  country  road  which,  with  thirteen 
miles'  walking,  would  bring  us  home  —  to  our 
Welsh  home  at  the  foot  of  Snowdon,  Eryri,  the 
home  of  eagles.  Behind  us,  as  we  turned,  the 
ships  had  become  but  white  moths  on  a  vast 
sea,  Anglesey  was  growing  dimmer,  the  cows 
pastured  on  the  plain  about  the  old  town  were 
but  specks,  the  coast-line  was  merging  into  the 
water.  But  still  the  castle  dominated  every- 
thing, and  I  thought  of  Dr.  Samuel  Johnson's 
delight  in  that  vast  pile  and  his  naive  record  in 
the  Cambrian  journal :  "  I  did  not  think  there 
had  been  such  buildings ;  it  surpassed  my  ideas." 


VII 

The  Eisteddfod 

It  was  the  first  morning  of  my  first  Welsh 
National  Eisteddfod,  and  I  sat  by  the  window 
working,  and  glancing  away  from  my  work  to 
a  hillside  up  which  led  narrow  steps  to  the  sum- 
mits above,  among  which  were  hidden  away  some 
half  a  dozen  tiny  villages.  Colwyn  Bay,  where 
the  Eisteddfod  was  to  be  held,  was  —  as  the  crow 
does  not  fly — about  forty  miles  distant.  It  was  a 
glorious  morning  of  sunshine  in  which  gleamed 
the  river,  glossy  beeches  and  pines,  and  little 
whitewashed  Welsh  cottages.  As  I  looked,  there 
began  to  emerge  from  the  steps  a  stream  of  peo- 
ple ;  down  and  down  they  flowed,  bright  in  their 
pretty  dresses  or  shining  in  their  black  Sunday- 
best  broadcloth.  All  those  mountain  hamlets  up 
above,  reached  by  roads  passable  only  for  moun- 
tain ponies,  were  sending  their  men,  women,  and 
children  to  the  Welsh  festival  of  song  and  poetry. 
Talking  and  excited  about  who  would  be 
chaired  as  bard,  who  would  be  crowned,  what 
female  choir  would  win  in  the  choral  contests,  what 
[  "7  ] 


Gallant  Little  Wales 


male  choir,  and  discussing  a  thousand  little  com- 
petitions, even  to  a  set  of  insertions  for  sheets, 
shams,  and  towels,  we  were  borne  on  the  train 
from  Bettws-y-Coed  swiftly  through  the  Vale  of 
Conway,  beside  the  river,  past  Caerhun,  the  once 
ancient  city  of  Canovium,  past  Conway  Castle, 
with  its  harp-shaped  walls  still  encircUng  the  town, 
and  so  to  Colwyn  Bay. 

Then  all  these  enthusiastic  people  who  had 
climbed  down  a  hill  to  take  the  train,  climbed 
up  another  to  see  the  first  Gorsedd  ceremony. 
As  we  passed,  from  one  of  the  cottages  was  heard 
the  voice  of  a  woman  screaming  in  great  excite- 
ment, "Mrs.  Jones,  Mrs.  Jones,  come  to  the 
front  door  quickly.  There 's  some  people  going 
by;  they're  dressed  in  blue  and  white.  Dear 
me,  Mrs.  Jones,  they  're  men  ! "  The  procession, 
fully  aware  that  Mrs.  Jones,  and  all  the  little 
Joneses  and  all  the  big  and  middling  Joneses, 
too,  had  come,  went  on  gravely  up,  up,  up  the 
hill  to  "  Y  Fanerig  "  (the  Flagstaff),  where  stood 
the  "  Maen  Llog  of  the  Gorsedd "  and  its  en- 
circling stones.  The  paths  were  steep,  and  even 
bards  and  druids  are  subject  to  embonpoint.  Old 
Eos  Dar,  who  can  sing  penillion  with  never  a 
pause  for  breath,  lost  his  "wind,"  and  the 
[  "8  ] 


The  Kisteddfod 


"  Bearer  of  the  Great  Sword  of  the  Gorsedd  " 
was  no  more  to  be  found.  A  boy  scout,  perhaps 
thinking  of  Scott's  minstrel,  who  said,  — 

"  The  way  was  long,  the  wind  was  cold, 
The  minstrel  was  infirm  and  old," 

was  despatched  downhill  after  him,  and  found 
him  and  the  sword,  arm  in  arm,  lagging  comfort- 
ably behind.  Druidical  deportment  is  astonish- 
ingly human  at  times.  But  the  hilltop  achieved 
and  wind  recovered,  the  bards  soberly  made 
their  way  into  the  druidical  circle  of  stones  that 
surround  the  great  Gorsedd  stone.  Nowhere,  as 
the  Archdruid  remarked,  had  the  Bardic  Brother- 
hood been  brought  nearer  heaven. 

From  the  summit,  north,  east,  south,  west, 
the  soft  valleys,  the  towering  mountains,  the 
secluded  villages,  the  shining  rivers,  and  the 
great  sea  were  visible.  And  there  on  this  hill- 
top the  bards,  druids,  and  ovates  dressed  in  blue 
and  white  and  green  robes,  celebrated  rites  only 
less  old  than  the  Eye  of  Light  itself.  After  the 
sounding  of  the  trumpet  ("  Corn  Gwlad  "),  the 
Gorsedd  prayer  was  recited  in  Welsh, — 

"  Grant,  O  God,  Thy  Protection ; 
And  in  Protection,  Strength; 

[119] 


Gallant  Little  Wales 


And  in  Strength,  Understanding ; 
And  in  Understanding,  Knowledge ; 
And  in  Knowledge,  the  Knowledge  of  Justice ; 
And  in  the  Knowledge  of  Justice,  the  Love  of  it ; 
And  in  that  Love,  the  Love  of  all  Existence ; 
And  in  the  Love  of  all  Existence,  the  Love  of  God. 
God  and  all  Goodness." 

Then  the  Archdruid,  Dyfed^  standing  upon  the 
Gorsedd  stone  and  facing  the  east,  unsheathed 
the  great  sword,  crying  out  thrice,  "  Aoes  Hedd- 
wch  ?  "  (Is  it  peace  ?)  and  the  bards  and  ovates 
replied  "  Heddw^ch ! "  (Peace.) 

There  are  some  scholars  who  question  the 
"  identity  of  the  Bardic  Gorsedd  with  the  druidic 
system."  The  Welsh  Gorsedd,  this  side  of  the 
controversial  point,  is  forty  centuries  old,  and 
in  all  conscience  that  is  old  enough.  Diodorus, 
the  Cicilian,  wrote,  "There  are,  among  the 
Gauls,  makers  of  verses,  whom  they  name  bards. 
There  are  also  certain  philosophers  and  theo- 
logists,  exceedingly  esteemed,  whom  they  call 
Druids."  Strabo,  the  geographer,  says, "  Amongst 
the  whole  of  the  Gauls  three  classes  are  espe- 
cially held  in  distinguished  honour  —  the  bards, 
the  prophets,  and  the  druids.  The  bards  are 
singers  and  poets,  the  prophets  are  sacrificers 
[  I20  ] 


The  Bjisteddfod 


and  philosophers,  but  the  druids,  besides  physi- 
ology, practised  ethical  philosophy."  As  far 
back  as  we  can  look  in  the  life  of  the  Cymru, 
poetry,  song,  and  theology  have  been  inex- 
tricably woven  together.  The  Gorsedd  was  then, 
formally,  for  the  Welsh  people  what  it  still  is 
informally :  a  popular  university,  a  law  court,  a 
parliament.  The  modern  Gorsedd,  with  its  twelve 
stones,  is  supposed  to  represent  the  signs  of  the 
zodiac  through  which  the  sun  passes,  with  a 
central  stone,  called  the  "Maen  Llog,"  in  the 
position  of  the  sacrificial  fire  in  the  druidical 
temple.  A  close  reverence  for  nature,  a  certain 
pantheism  in  the  cult  of  the  druids,  shows  itself 
in  various  ways, — in  the  belief  that  the  oak 
tree  was  the  home  of  the  god  of  lightning,  that 
mistletoe,  which  usually  grows  upon  the  oak, 
was  a  mark  of  divine  favour.  The  most  pro- 
minent symbol  of  the  Gorsedd  is  the  "Broad 
Arrow  "  or  "  mystic  mark,"  supposed  to  repre- 
sent the  rays  of  light  which  the  druids  wor- 
shipped. Even  the  colours  of  the  robes  of  the 
druids,  ovates,  and  bards  are  full  of  character- 
istic worship  of  nature ;  the  druids  in  white  sym- 
bolical of  the  purity  of  truth  and  light,  the 
ovates  in  green  like  the  life  and  growth  of  na- 

[  I.I  ] 


Gallant  Little  Wales 


ture,  the  bards  in  blue,  the  hue  of  the  sky  and 
in  token  of  the  loftiness  of  their  calling. 

Up  there  on  the  hilltop,  with  its  vast  pano- 
rama of  hill  and  valley,  sea  and  sky,  time  became 
as  nothing.  The  Gorsedd  became  again  the  dem- 
ocratic Witenagemot  of  the  Welsh,  and  there 
still  were  represented  the  mountain  shepherd, 
the  pale  collier,  the  lusty  townsman,  the  gentle 
knight,  the  expounder  of  law,  the  teacher  and 
the  priest.  But  if  upon  the  hill  time  was  as  no- 
thing, down  below  in  the  gigantic  Eisteddfod 
pavilion  some  ten  thousand  people  were  wait- 
ing. "Gallant  little  Wales,"  which  has  certainly 
awakened  from  its  long  sleep,  was  past  the 
period  of  rubbing  its  eyes.  It  was  shouting  and 
calling  for  the  Eisteddfod  ceremonies  to  begin, 
perhaps  as  the  folk  in  Caerwys  had  called  im- 
patiently in  the  days  of  the  twelfth  century,  or 
again  in  that  old  town  in  the  days  of  Elizabeth, 
the  last  that  memorable  Eisteddfod  when  a  com- 
mission was  appointed  by  Elizabeth  herself  to 
check  the  bad  habits  of  a  crowd  of  lazy  illit- 
erate bards  who  went  about  the  country  begging. 

That  great  Eisteddfodic  pavilion,  where  the 
people  were  waiting  good-naturedly  but  impa- 
tiently, is  primarily  a  place  of  music.   Even  as 

[    122   ] 


The  Kisteddfod 


in  the  world,  so  in  Wales  music  comes  first  in 
the  hearts  of  mankind  and  poetry  second.  And 
it  may  be,  since  music  is  more  social  and  dem- 
ocratic, that  the  popular  preference  is  as  it  should 
be.  The  human  element  in  all  that  happens  at 
a  Welsh  Eisteddfod  is  robust  and  teeming  with 
enthusiasm.  It  is  true  that  prize-taking  socks, 
shawls,  pillow  shams,  and  such  homely  articles 
no  longer  hang  in  festoons  above  the  platform  as 
they  did  some  twenty  or  thirty  years  ago.  Now 
the  walls  are  gaily  decorated  with  banners  bear- 
ing thousands  of  spiteful-looking  dragons,  and 
pennants  inscribed  with  the  names  of  scores  of 
famous  Welshmen,  and  with  such  mottoes  as 
"  Y  Gwir  yn  Erbyn  y  Byd  "(the  truth  against 
the  world),  "Gwlad  y  Mabinogion"(the  land  of 
the  Mabinogion),  "  Calon  wrth  Galon"  (heart 
with  heart),  and  others. 

After  the  procession  of  dignitaries  was  seated 
upon  the  platform,  a  worried-looking  bard  be- 
gan to  call  out  prizes  for  every  conceivably  use- 
ful thing  under  the  sun,  among  them  a  clock 
tower  which  he  seemed  to  be  in  need  of  himself 
as  a  rostrum  for  his  throat-splitting  yells.  During 
these  announcements  the  choirs  were  filing  in, 
a  pretty  child  with  a  'cello  much  larger  than 
[  123  ] 


Gallant  Little  Wales 


herself  was  taking  off  her  hat  and  coat,  a  stiff, 
self-conscious  young  man  was  bustling  about 
with  an  air  of  importance,  and  in  the  front, 
just  below  the  platform,  sat  newspaper  report- 
ers, from  all  over  the  United  Kingdom,  busy 
at  their  work.  Among  them  were  the  gray,  the 
young,  the  weary,  the  dusty,  the  smart,  the 
shabby,  and  one  who  wore  a  wig,  but  made  up 
in  roses  in  his  buttonhole  for  what  he  lacked  in 
hair.  There  were  occasional  cheers  as  some  local 
prima  donna  entered  the  choir  seats,  and  many 
jokes  from  the  anxious-looking  master  of  cere- 
monies. 

At  last  the  first  choir  was  assembled,  and  a 
little  lady,  somebody's  good  mother,  mounted 
upon  a  chair.  The  choir  began  to  sing,  — 

"  Come,  sisters,  come. 
Where  light  and  shadows  mingle, 
And  elves  and  fairies  dance  and  sing, 
Upon  the  meadow  land." 

The  little  lady  never  worked  harder,  her  baton, 
her  hands,  her  head,  her  lips,  her  eyes  were  all 
busy.  Was  it  the  Celtic  spirit  that  made  those 
elves  and  fairies  seem  to  dance  upon  the  meadows 
or  did  they  really  dance  ?  The  next  choir  was 
[  124  ] 


< 


The  Eisteddfod 


composed  of  younger  women,  among  them 
many  a  beauty-loving  face,  alas !  too  pale  and 
telling  of  the  hard  life  of  the  hills  or  of  the 
harder  life  of  some  mining-town.  Of  the  third 
choir  the  leader  was  a  merry  little  man,  scarcely 
as  high  as  the  leader's  stand,  with  a  wild  look  in 
his  twinkling  eyes  as  he  waved  a  baton  and  the 
choir  began,  — 

"  Far  beneath  the  stars  we  lie. 
Far  from  gaze  of  mortal  eye, 
Far  beneath  the  ocean  swell, 
Here  we  merry  mermaids  dwell." 

He  believed  not  only  in  his  choir,  but  also  in  those 
mermaidens,  and  so  did  the  little  lad,  not  much 
bigger  than  Hofmann  when  he  first  began  to  tour, 
who  played  the  accompaniment.  When  that 
choir  went  out,  a  fourth  came  in,  still  inviting 
the  sisters  to  come.  At  last  the  sisters  not  only 
came,  but  also  decided  to  stay,  and  another  choir 
lured  the  sailor  successfully  to  his  doom,  and  all 
was  over,  for  even  in  choir  tragedies  there  must 
be  an  end  to  the  song.  The  gallant  little  mother 
had  won  the  first  prize.  It  takes  the  mothers  to 
win  prizes,  and  the  audience  thought  so,  too. 
The  crowd  yelled  and  stamped  with  delight. 

[  125  ] 


Gallant  Little  Wales 


When  one  asks  one's  self  whether  Surrey,  for 
example,  or  such  a  state  as  Massachusetts  in 
America,  could  be  brought  to  send  its  people  from 
every  farm,  every  valley,  every  hilltop,  to  a  festival 
thousands  strong,  day  after  day  for  a  whole  week, 
one  realizes  how  tremendous  a  thing  this  Welsh 
national  enthusiasm  is.  Educationally  nothing 
could  be  a  greater  movement  for  Wales.  To  the 
Welsh  the  beauty  of  worship,  of  music,  of  poetry 
are  inseparable.  Only  so  can  this  passion  for 
beauty,  which  brings  multitudes  together  to  take 
part  in  all  that  is  noblest  and  best  in  Welsh  life, 
be  explained.  Only  so  can  you  understand  why 
some  young  collier,  pale  [and  work-worn,  sings 
with  his  whole  soul  and  shakes  with  the  song 
within  him  even  as  a  bird  shakes  with  the  notes 
that  are  too  great  for  its  body.  These  Welsh  sing 
as  if  music  were  all  the  world  to  them,  and  in  it 
they  forget  the  world.  Behind  the  passion  of  their 
song  lies  a  devout  religious  conviction,  and  their 
song  sweeps  up  in  praise  and  petition  to  an  Al- 
mighty God,  who  listens  to  Shelley's  "Ode  to  the 
West  Wind  "  as  well  as  to  some  great  hymn.  To 
hear  ten  thousand  Welsh  people  singing  "  Land 
of  my  Fathers,"  each  taking  naturally  one  of  the 
four  parts  and  all  singing  in  perfect  harmony,  is 

[  126  ] 


The  Risteddfod 


to  have  one  of  the  great  experiences  of  life.  To 
hear  Shelley's  "  Ode  "  set  to  Elgar's  music  and 
sung  by  several  choirs,  to  hear  that  wild,  far- 
travelling  wind  sweep  along  in  a  tumult  of  har- 
monies, to  know  that  every  heart  there  was  as  a 
lyre  even  to  the  least  breath  of  that  wind,  to  hear 
that  last  cry,  — 

"  Oh,  wind. 
If  winter  comes,  can  spring  be  far  behind  ?  *'  — 

to  listen  again  to  those  choirs  late  in  the  evening 
on  the  station  platform  with  the  sea  dim  and  vast 
and  muting  the  song  to  its  own  greater  music,  is 
to  have  felt  in  the  Welsh  spirit  what  no  tongue 
can  describe, — it  is  to  understand  the  meaning 
of  the  word  "hwyl,"  that  untranslatable  word  of 
a  passionate  emotionalism. 

All  that  went  on  behind  the  scenes  the  audi- 
ence could  not  know.  They  saw  only  those  con- 
sidered by  the  adjudicators  fit  to  survive.  They 
did  not  see  the  six  blind  people,  for  even  the  blind 
have  their  place  in  this  great  festival,  who  entered 
the  little  school-room  off  Abergele  Road  to  take 
the  preliminary  tests,  the  girl  who  played  "  The 
Harmonious  Blacksmith,"  and,  shaking  from  ex- 
citement and  holding  on  to  her  guide,  was  led 
[  127  ] 


Gallant  Little  Wales 


away  unsuccessful.  They  did  not  see  the  lad  who 
played  "  Men  of  Harlech  "  crudely,  his  anxious 
ageing,  work-worn  mother  sitting  beside  him, 
holding  his  stick  and  nodding  her  head  in  ap- 
proval. All  they  heard  were  a  selected  two  who 
were  considered  by  the  judges  fit  to  play,  a  man 
both  blind  and  deaf  who  performed  a  scherzo  of 
Brahms  and  a  Carnarvon  sea-captain,  now  blind, 
who  played  on  the  violin.  The  quiet  of  the  one- 
time sea-captain's  face  laid  against  the  violin,  the 
peace  and  pleasure  in  the  lines  about  the  sightless 
eyes,  would  have  repaid  the  whole  audience  — 
even  if  the  violinist  had  not  been  an  exception- 
ally good  player  —  for  listening. 

One  of  the  inspiring  and  amusing  events  of 
the  week  was  the  discovery  of  a  marvellous  con- 
tralto. A  young  girl,  shabbily  dressed  and  ill  at 
ease,  came  out  to  sing.  Everything  was  being 
pressed  forward  towards  the  crowning  of  the  bard, 
one  of  the  great  events  of  the  Eisteddfod.  Peo- 
ple were  impatient,  and  somewhat  noisy.  But  as 
the  girl  began  to  sing  they  quieted  down,  then 
they  listened  with  wonder,  and  in  a  minute  you 
could  have  heard  a  pin  drop  in  that  throng  of 
ten  thousand.  Before  she  had  finished  singing, 
"  Jesu,  Lover  of  my  Soul,"  the  audience  knew 

[  128] 


The  Bjisteddfod 


that  it  had  listened  to  one  of  the  great  singers  of 
the  world.  When  she  had  finished  her  song  and 
unclasped  her  hands,  she  became  again  nothing 
more  than  an  awkward,  silly,  giggling  child  whom 
Llew  Tegid  had  to  hold  by  the  arm. 

The  audience  shouted,  "  What 's  her  name  ?  " 

"Maggie  Jones,"  he  replied;  "that  begins 
well." 

"  Where  does  she  come  from  ? "  demanded 
the  crowd. 

"  Police  station,"  answered  Llew  Tegid  lugu- 
briously. 

The  audience  roared  with  laughter  and  de- 
manded the  name  of  the  town.  Maggie  Jones 
is  the  daughter  of  Police  Superintendent  Jones 
of  Pwllheli.  Perhaps  in  the  years  to  come  the 
world  will  hear  her  name  again. 

There  are  children  at  these  Eisteddfodau 
whose  little  feet  can  scarce  reach  the  pedals  of  a 
harp.  Even  the  robins  singing  up  in  the  high 
pavilion  roof  who  had  joined  in  the  music  from 
time  to  time,  trilling  joyously  to  Handel's  "  Oh, 
had  I  JubaPs  Lyre,"  twittered  with  surprise  that 
anything  so  small  could  play  anything  so  large. 
But  no  one  of  the  thousands  there,  even  the  child- 
ren, grew  tired  for  an  instant,  unless  it  was  these 
[  129  ]^ 


Gallant  Little  Wales 


same  robins,  who  were  weary  at  times  because 
of  the  cheerless  character  of  some  of  the  sacred 
music  sung  in  competition  and  themselves  start- 
ed up  singing  blithely  and  gladly  as  God  meant 
that  birds  and  men  should  sing.  The  robins 
twittered  madly  when  some  sturdy  little  Welsh- 
man stepped  into  the  penillion  singing,  accom- 
panied by  the  harp,  no  more  to  be  daunted  than 
a  child  stepping  into  rope  skipping.  When  the 
grown-ups  had  finished,  two  little  children  came 
forward  and  sang  their  songs.  North  Wales  style. 
The  afternoon  was  growing  later  and  later ; 
it  was  high  time  for  the  name  of  the  bard  of 
the  crown  poem  to  be  announced.  At  last,  with 
due  pomp,  the  name  of  the  young  bard  was 
announced.  Every  one  looked  to  see  where  he 
might  be  sitting.  He  was  found  sitting  modestly 
in  the  rear  of  the  big  pavilion,  and  there  were 
shouts  of  "Dymafo!"  (here  he  is).  Two  bards 
came  down  and  escorted  him  to  the  platform, 
where  all  the  druids,  ovates,  and  bards  wereawait- 
ing  him.  The  band,  the  trumpeter,  the  harp,  and 
the  sword  now  all  performed  their  service,  the 
sun  slanting  down  through  the  western  win- 
dows on  to  this  bardic  pageant.  The  sparrows 
flew  in  and  out  of  the  sunlight,  unafraid  of  the 

[  130  ] 


The  Eisteddfod 


dragons  that  waved  about  them  and  the  bands 
that  played  beneath  them,  and  the  great  sword 
held  sheathed  over  the  young  bard's  head.  The 
sword  was  bared  three  times  and  sheathed  again 
as  all  shouted  "  Heddwch  ! "  The  bard  was 
crowned  and  the  whole  audience  rose  to  the 
Welsh  national  song. 

What  is  the  meaning  of  this  unique  festival 
of  poetry  and  song  ?  Mr.  Lloyd  George,  who 
had  escaped  from  the  din  of  battle  outside,  and 
the  jeers  of  the  Goths  and  Vandals  who  could  n't 
or  would  n't  understand  the  Fourth  Form,  said, 
amidst  laughter,  that  there  was  no  budget  to  raise 
taxes  for  the  upkeep  of  the  Eisteddfod.  Then 
he  continued,  "  The  bards  are  not  compelled  by 
law  to  fill  up  forms.  ^There  is  no  conscription 
to  raise  an  army  from  the  ranks  of  the  people  to 
defend  the  Eisteddfod's  empire  in  the  heart  of 
the  nation.  And  yet,  after  the  lapse  of  genera- 
tions, the  Eisteddfod  is  more  alive  than  ever* 
Well,  of  what  good  is  she  ?  I  will  tell  you  one 
thing  —  she  demonstrates  what  the  democracy  of 
Wales  can  do  at  its  best.  The  democracy  has 
kept  her  alive ;  the  democracy  has  filled  her 
chairs ;  the  sons  of  the  democracy  compete  for 
her  honours.  I  shall  never  forget  my  visit  to  the 

[  131  ] 


Gallant  Little  Wales 


Llangollen  Eisteddfod  two  years  ago.  When 
crossing  the  hills  between  Flintshire  and  the  val- 
ley of  the  Dee,  I  saw  their  slopes  darkened  with 
the  streams  of  shepherds  and  cottagers  and  their 
families  going  towards  the  town.  What  did  they 
go  to  see  ?  To  see  a  man  of  their  nation  hon- 
oured for  a  piece  of  poetry .  .  .  .  And  the  people 
were  as  quick  to  appreciate  the  points  as  any 
expert  of  the  Gorsedd,  and  wonderfully  respon- 
sive to  every  lofty  thought."  Yes,  unlike  any 
other  gathering  in  the  world,  the  Eisteddfod  is 
all  that.  Long  ago  in  the  latter  half  of  the  eight- 
eenth century  lolo  Morganwg  stated  the  objects 
of  Welsh  bardism, —  "  to  reform  the  morals  and 
customs;  to  secure  peace;  to  praise  (or  encour- 
age) all  that  is  good  or  excellent."  This  national 
festival  is  the  popular  university  of  the  people, 
it  is  the  centre  of  Welsh  nationalism,  the  feast 
of  Welsh  brotherhood.  Only  listened  to  in  this 
spirit  can  one  understand  what  it  means  when 
an  Eisteddfodic  throng,  after  the  crowning  of 
the  bard,  rises  to  sing  "Hen  Wlad  fy  Nha- 
dau,"  — 

"  Old  land  that  our  fathers  before  us  held  dear." 


VIII 

Cambrian  Cottages 

In  the  "Dream  of  Rhonabwy,"  from  the  "Ma- 
binogion,"  one  of  the  great  books  of  the  imag- 
inative literature  of  the  world,  it  is  not  a  very 
pleasant  picture  which  we  get  of  a  Welsh  home. 
Yet  the  Welsh  cottage  home  of  to-day  is  a 
treasure  of  beauty  and  orderliness.  Doubtless 
this  picture  from  the  "  Dream  of  Rhonabwy," 
in  its  realistic  detail,  making  allowances  for  cer- 
tain Norman  influences  at  work  upon  the  various 
stories  of  the  "Mabinogion,"  is  a  true  one.  The 
strength  and  rustiness  of  the  colouring  of  the 
house  of  Heilyn  Goch,  the  blackness  of  the  old 
hall,  the  upright  gable  out  of  the  door  of  which 
poured  the  household  smoke,  the  floor  inside 
full  of  puddles  and  slippery  with  the  mire  of 
cattle,  the  boughs  of  holly  spread  on  the  floor, 
and  at  one  side  of  the  hall  an  old  hag  making 
a  fire,  the  yellow  calf-skin  it  was  a  privilege 
for  any  one  to  get  upon,  the  barley  bread  and 
cheese  and  milk  which,  after  the  people  of  the 
house  had  entered,  —  a  ruddy,  curly-headed  man 


Gallant  Little  Wales 


with  faggots  on  his  back,  and  a  pale  slender 
woman,  —  they  were  given  to  eat; — all,  I  say, 
forms  a  picture  rude,  coarse,  strong  in  its  prim- 
itive detail  of  twelfth-century  Cymric  house- 
hold life.  Something  more,  too,  it  suggests.  As 
Matthew  Arnold  says,  "The  very  first  thing 
that  strikes  one,  in  reading  the  '  Mabinogion,' 
is  how  evidently  the  mediaeval  story-teller  is  pil- 
laging an  antiquity  of  which  he  does  not  fully 
possess  the  secret;  he  is  like  a  peasant  building 
his  hut  on  the  side  of  Halicarnassus  or  Ephesus; 
he  builds,  but  what  he  builds  is  full  of  materials 
of  which  he  knows  not  the  history,  or  knows  by 
a  glimmering  tradition  merely." 

There  are  other  pictures,  too,  in  the  "  Mabin- 
ogion" of  early  Welsh  household  life,  pictures 
which  one  must  question  because  of  their  lux- 
ury and  general  magnificence,  features  evidently 
due  to  the  strong  Norman  influence  one  finds 
at  work  almost  throughout  these  stories.  No 
picture  could  be  more  rich  and  more  beautiful 
than  that  in  the  "  Dream  of  Maxen  Wledig," 
where  Helen  is  found  by  the  Emperor's  messen- 
ger sitting  in  the  old  castle  hall  at  Carnarvon. 
These  are  the  tales  of  the  splendid,  barbaric 
youth  of  a  people,  filled  with  the  vividness,  the 

[  134] 


Cambrian  Cottages 


crowding,  the  vitality  of  youth,  and  touched  to 
an  even  more  magnificent  beauty  by  another 
hand  which  was  deHberate  and  Norman — stories 
divinely  disregardful  of  what  might  have  been 
intelligible;  in  their  mystery  and  wonder  full  of 
the  life  of  the  young.  Barbaric  touches,  magic, 
fantastic  elements,  crude  life,  gorgeous  colour- 
ing,—  all  this  and  thrice  more  than  this  does 
one  find  in  the  "  Mabinogion." 

At  first  dreaming,  —  for  dream  one  must 
over  the  cottages  of  Wales  if  one  is  ever  truly 
to  enter  them,  —  these  homes  of  a  more  recent 
time  would  seem  to  have  suffered  a  loss  in 
vividness,  in  interest,  so  immeasurable  that  there 
could  be  no  gain  to  balance  against  it.  Gone 
are  the  mystery  and  the  semblance  of  splen- 
dour; the  sense  of  adventure  and  the  strong, 
wild  life  of  these  earlier  centuries  are  forever 
vanished.  Yes,  gone  they  are,  and  gone  they 
were  before  ever  a  r'edacteur  took  down  one 
of  the  tales  of  the  "  Mabinogion  "  from  report 
that  was  already  becoming  but  tradition.  Pur- 
posely did  I  select  the  "  Dream  of  Rhonabwy," 
for  not  only  in  closeness  to  human  reality,  but 
also  in  architectural  detail,  do  I  believe  it  to  be 
an  exact  picture  of  early  Welsh  home  life.  After 

[  X35  3 


Gallant  Little  Wales 


the  sordid  picture  of  the  hall,  the  description  of 
the  rainstorm  comes  but  as  a  reinforcing  touch 
of  truthfulness :  "  And  there  arose  a  storm  of 
wind  and  rain,  so  that  it  was  hardly  possible  to 
go  forth  with  safety.  And  being  weary  with 
their  journey,  they  laid  themselves  down  and 
sought  sleep.  And  when  they  looked  at  the 
couch,  it  seemed  to  be  made  but  of  a  little 
coarse  straw  .  .  .  with  the  stems  of  boughs 
sticking  therethrough,  for  the  cattle  had  eaten 
all  the  straw  that  was  placed  at  the  head  and  at 
the  foot.  And  upon  it  was  stretched  an  old  rus- 
set-coloured rug,  threadbare  and  ragged ;  and  a 
coarse  sheet,  full  of  slits,  was  upon  the  rug,  and 
an  ill-stuffed  pillow,  and  a  worn-out  cover  upon 
the  sheet.  And  after  much  suffering  from  .  .  . 
the  discomfort  of  their  couch,  a  heavy  sleep  fell 
on  Rhonabwy's  companion.  But  Rhonabwy, 
not  being  able  either  to  sleep  or  to  rest,  thought 
he  should  suffer  less  if  he  went  to  lie  upon  the 
yellow  calf-skin  that  was  stretched  out  on  the 
floor.  And  there  he  slept."  Undoubtedly  here 
even  the  slit  sheet  is  a  touch  of  Norman  elegance. 
In  the  "  Dream  of  Rhonabwy,"  not  in  the  far 
more  beautiful  "  Dream  of  Maxen  Wledig," 
with  its  elaborate  interior  descriptions,  do  we 

[  136  ] 


Cambrian  Cottages 


find  something  like  prototype  for  the  Welsh 
cottage  of  to-day :  the  fire  made  against  the  gable 
end,  even  as  it  is  now  in  the  cottages,  the  sleep- 
ing accommodations  at  the  opposite  ends.  This 
is  the  arrangement  still  of  the  vast  majority  of 
the  cottages.  Originally  probably  there  were  no 
windows  other  than,  it  may  be,  little  slits  — 
"  wind-eyes  "  they  were  called  with  that  relevant 
quaintness  characteristic  of  early  speech  —  such 
as  we  see  to  this  day  in  old  Welsh  barns.  In 
the  "Mabinogion"  story  of  Geraint,  with  its 
white  stag,  its  divergent  sense  of  the  forest  and 
of  a  bustling  town  life  and  the  beautiful  Gwen- 
hwyvar,  there  is  reference  to  glass  windows: 
"And  one  morning  in  the  summer  time  they 
were  upon  their  couch,  and  Geraint  lay  upon  the 
edge  of  it.  And  Enid  was  without  sleep  in  the 
apartment,  which  had  windows  of  glass.  And 
the  sun  shone  upon  the  couch.  And  the  clothes 
had  slipped  from  off  his  arms  and  his  breast, 
and  he  was  asleep.  Then  she  gazed  upon  the 
marvellous  beauty  of  his  appearance,  and  she 
said,  '  Alas,  and  I  am  the  cause  that  these  arms 
and  this  breast  have  lost  their  glory  and  the  war- 
like fame  which  they  once  so  richly  enjoyed.' " 
Are  any  lines  in  Tennyson's  "  Enid  "  taken  from 
[  137  ] 


Gallant  Little  Wales 


this  "  Mabinogion "  tale,  that  story  upon  which 
Tennyson's  widest  popularity  was  founded, 
more  vivid  than  this  beautiful  romantic  touch  ? 
Undoubtedly  these  glass  windows  which  re- 
vealed the  manly  beauty  of  Geraint  in  over- 
throw were  glass  lattices.  They  could  not  have 
been  very  common,  and  considerably  later  they 
were  followed  by  wooden  lattices  in  general  use 
in  the  Welsh  cottage,  and  still  occasionally  to 
be  found  to-day.  I  have  found  them  several 
times  in  the  dairy-rooms  of  old  cottages  in^North 
Wales.  Norman  influence  was  at  work  in  this 
story  of  the  late  twelfth  or  early  thirteenth  cent- 
ury from  the  "  Mabinogion."  Sometime  in  the 
fourteenth  or  fifteenth  century  it  was  that  the 
lattice  window  of  the  cottage  came  in,  nor  did 
it  go  out  of  use  until  the  end  of  the  seventeenth 
century.  The  window  was  a  double  frame — just 
as  it  is  most  frequently  now  —  filled  with  woven 
diamond  lattice.  Within  were  wooden  shutters 
opening  inwards.  A  distant  view  or  sketch  of 
the  leaded  panes  of  to-day  or  of  the  diamond 
lattice  of  a  long  ago  yesterday  reveals  no  differ- 
ence between  the  two,  so  closely  has  the  type 
of  window  been  kept,  as,  for  example,  the  little, 
old-style  windows  of  Beddgelert  and  Carnarvon. 

[  138] 


Cambrian  Cottages 


And  the  beauty  out  upon  which  these  old 
windows  look  is  ever  the  same  —  Eryri,  Eagle's 
Eyrie,  is  this  land  of  North  Wales.  Peak,  pre- 
cipice, lake,  rushing  stream,  valley,  forest  lie 
always  before  one,  sometimes  shrouded  for  a 
while  by  the  mist,  again  pricked  out  in  indes- 
cribable altitude  of  mountain  or  whiteness  of 
falling  water  before  eyes  that  cannot  fail  to  won- 
der at  their  beauty.  In  the  fourteenth  book  of 
the  "  Prelude,"  Wordsworth  writes  of  the  ascent 
which  he  and  his  Welsh  friend  made  of  Snow- 
don  from  Beddgelert  at  dawn,  and  we  may,  if 
we  have  not  been  in  that  mountain-cupped 
heart  of  Wales  to  hear  it  for  ourselves,  hear  with 
Wordsworth  the  mounting 

"  roar  of  waters,  torrents,  streams, 
Innumerable,  roaring  with  one  voice  ! " 

And  with  the  poet,  too,  behold  an 

*'  Emblem  of  a  mind 
That  feeds  upon  infinity." 

The  majestic  beauty  of  these  little  Alps  of 
Wales  seems  but  to  emphasize  the  cheerfulness 
and  cosiness  of  the  life  man  has  made  for  him- 
self. Indeed,  nowhere  are  valleys  greener,  more 
sheltering,  more  homelike,  more  cosey.    And 

[   -^^9  ] 


Gallant  Little  Wales 


the  cottages,  with  their  ascending  spirals  of  peat 
smoke,  the  sweet  fragrance  of  their  homely  life, 
speak  a  language  of  welcome  no  one  can  mis- 
take. Gone  are  the  old  barbaric  days,  with  their 
rough,  strong  life,  their  adventure ;  gone  are  the 
days  of  chivalry,  with  their  bright  pageant,  their 
luxury,  their  courtly  ways.  Here  we  may  turn 
a  stone  of  those  mediaeval  days,  there  touch  a 
fretted  memorial  of  still  earlier  times,  even  before 
Arthur  had  come  to  wake  the  world  to  a  new 
romance  and  a  new  and  selfless  endeavour.  Les- 
sened, cheaper  may  this  humble  cottage  heritage 
of  the  present  seem  than  those  times  which  have 
gone  their  "journey  of  all  days  "  into  the  past.  But 
not  so  does  this  sweet  homeliness  seem  to  me. 
Life  is  gentler,  life  is  better,  perhaps  even  kind- 
lier within  them  by  the  bright  hearth  where,  for 
the  asking,  any  one  may  sit  welcomed  and  at 
ease.  Their  purple  roofs  are  but  modest  regal 
seal  upon  the  happiness  within.  One  feels 
singularly  close  to  that  great  mother  of  us 
all  in  these  tiny  Welsh  cottages,  near  to  what 
is  essential,  what  is  real.  Mortals  who  have 
not  been  dissevered  from  their  proper  feeling 
for  houses  will  realize  that  these  little  homes 
have  sprung,  as  it  were,  from  the  soil,  that  the 
[  HO  ] 


< 

< 


Cambrian  Cottages 


cord   binding   them   to    the   earth    has   never 
been  cut. 

The  "  Cyttiau  Gwyddelod  "  or  circular  huts 
were  the  earliest  forms  of  dwellings  of  which 
there  are  still  remains.  One  finds  them  in  vari- 
ous places  on  the  meadows  lying  between  and 
in  front  of  Pen-y-Pass  and  Pen-y-Gwyrd  where 
Charles  Kingsley  loved  to  stop.  There  are  many 
other  places,  too,  one  not  far  out  of  Barmouth 
where  Tennyson  stayed  and  where  some  of  the 
stanzas  from  "In  Memoriam"  were  written; 
and  some  near  Bettws-y-Coed,  one  of  whose 
valleys,  the  Lledr,  Ruskin  called  the  most  beau- 
tiful in  the  world.  The  little  circular  rings  of 
foundation  stones  are  curiously  disappointing, 
scarcely  worth  the  seeing,  except  that,  in  touch- 
ing them,  it  may  be  one  presses  a  hand's 
breadth  nearer  to  a  vanished  past.  These  circu- 
lar huts  lasted  through  a  Roman-British  period, 
and  looked,  probably,  much  like  a  wigwam, 
with  a  circular  foundation  wall  of  stone,  wood, 
or  wattle,  from  four  to  six  feet  high,  capped  with 
woven  boughs  of  thatch,  and  within,  a  floor 
diameter  from  twelve  to  twenty-four  feet.  Grad- 
ually the  circular  hut  gave  place  to  the  rectangu- 
lar, at  first  with  slight  improvement  in  comfort, 
[hi]. 


Gallant  Little  Wales 


as  I  think  the  picture  of  "Rhonabwy"  suggests. 
There  was  still  no  chimney  or  ingle  and  the 
smoke  poured  out  of  the  open  doorway.  Yet  in 
the  arrangement  described  in  "Rhonabwy"  we 
have  embryonically  the  arrangement  of  to-day. 
The  subdivision  of  the  interior  space  was  still 
to  come. 

The  earliest  examples  extant  of  the  rectangu- 
lar type  are  of  the  fourteenth  and  fifteenth  cent- 
uries. Up  till  three  years  ago,  when  it  was  de- 
stroyed to  make  room  for  an  extension  of  the 
Calvinistic  Methodist  Chapel,  such  a  little  cot- 
tage there  still  was  in  Beddgelert,  Ty  Ucha.  Such 
a  cot  there  still  is  in  Bettws-y-Coed,  Dol  y 
Waenydd;  also  Tyddyn  Cynal,  near  Aber  Con- 
way, as  well  as  Old  Plas,  Llanfair  Fechan,  to  give 
but  a  few  examples  which  any  lover  of  Welsh 
life  may  consult  for  himself.  These  little  cottages 
are  to  be  distinguished  by  their  roof  principals, 
which  start  from  the  floor,  heavy  curved  pieces 
of  oak  meeting  at  the  ridge  in  the  roof  No  doubt 
the  earliest  churches  were  built  in  this  fashion 
and  the  cottages  were  copied  from  them.  The 
churches  of  old  foundation  which  survive,  how- 
ever, are,  as  I  have  said  in  the  chapter  on  the  little 
churches  of  Wales,  in  the  style  the  Latin  monks 
[  H2  ] 


Cambrian  Cottages 


dictated  and  Llewelyn  the  Great  introduced  into 
Wales,  — twelfth-century  churches  such  as  those 
at  Llanrhychwyn,  GyfRn,  and  Caerhun.  Beyond 
question,  Welsh  cottages  represent  a  native  in- 
fluence which  antedates  that  of  the  oldest  churches 
now  extant  in  Wales. 

In  the  Welsh  women  who  sit  by  the  ingle  fire 
of  this  cottage  life  one  feels  an  age-old  continuity 
of  home,  of  the  heart  of  things,  of  association,  of 
service,  of  beauty ;  the  pale  slender  woman  of  the 
"Dream  of  Rhonabwy"  who  entered  the  hall 
with  the  ruddy  man ;  the  maiden  with  "  yellow 
curling  hair"  whom,  in  the  "Lady  of  the  Foun- 
tain," Owain  sees  through  an  aperture  in  the 
gate,  a  row  of  houses  on  either  side  of  the  maiden; 
and  others  who  kindle  fires  and  perform  the 
household  tasks,  who  accoutre  the  knights,  who 
embroider  with  gold  upon  yellow  satin.  Much 
of  the  colour  of  that  mediaeval  world  is  a  thing 
of  the  past,  but  not  its  women :  they  are  essen- 
tially the  same,  though  of  a  democratic  to-day, 
simple  as  Enid  in  her  worn  habiliments  when 
Arthur  asked  her  what  expedition  this  was  and 
she  replied,  "  I  know  not,  lord,  save  that  it  be- 
hoves me  to  journey  by  the  same  road  that  he 
journeys."    The  woman  of  to-day  knows  now 

[  143  ] 


Gallant  Little  Wales 


what  that  journey  of  her  mate  is,  and  still  she  goes 
with  him,  not  driven  before  him,  but  by  his  side. 
It  was  on  the  road  that,  as  I  studied  these 
little  cottages  from  week  to  week,  I  encoun- 
tered the  Welshwoman  of  both  an  olden  romance 
and  a  present  world  of  fact.  Very  humble  little 
pilgrimages  were  these  of  mine,  not  made  with- 
out their  diverse  experiences  of  joy  and  fatigue. 
Sometimes  it  was  a  little  lane  I  travelled  on 
foot,  off  the  highroad  and  through  the  heart  of 
a  farmland,  the  hedges  eight  feet  high  with 
honeysuckle  and  heaven-deep  with  fragrance; 
again  I  dropped  down  a  hill,  heather  and  fox- 
glove making  a  royal  display  in  bare  places, 
and  in  the  distance  the  bells  of  Llanycil  ring- 
ing; or  I  climbed  a  hill  on  the  way  to  Llangy- 
nog,  a  ridge  which  seemed  the  top  and  the  edge 
of  the  world,  treeless  upland  pastures  like  deep 
agate  rich  with  ruby,  lavender,  brown  and 
freaked  with  emerald  green,  purple  and  pink, 
and  all  opalescent  with  sunshine,  dotted  with 
black  sheep  and  white  sheep  and  little  lambs, 
some  straddling  with  surprise  as  they  rose  stretch- 
ing and  curling  their  tails  with  the  delicious 
energy  of  awakening.  Or,  like  Moses,  I  came 
down  from  Nebo,  only  it  was  a  Welsh  Nebo 

[  H4  ] 


Cambrian  Cottages 


and  my  hands  were  full  of  peppermints  bought 
for  twopence,  and  children,  rosy-cheeked  young- 
sters in  a  frenzy  of  joy,  were  funning  about  me. 
Into  strange  places  may  even  a  cottage  gleam 
lead.  Once  it  took  me  to  that  most  primitive 
of  all  shelters,  a  cromlech,  where  gorse  made 
sunshine  on  the  hill  and  heather  made  a  glory, 
and  in  a  near-by  oat-field  pansies  bloomed,  and, 
above,  a  crown  of  pines  sung  in  the  ever-blowing 
winds.  Or  the  gleam  led  me  beside  some  tiny 
stream,  almost  invisible,  that  found  its  way  like 
a  thread  downhill. 

"  Down  from  the  mountain 
And  over  the  level, 
And  streaming  and  shining  on 
Silent  river. 
Silvery  willow, 
Pasture  and  plowland, 
Innocent  maidens, 
Garrulous  children. 
Homestead  and  harvest. 
Reaper  and  gleaner, 
And  rough-ruddy  faces 
Of  lowly  labour 
I  followed  the  gleam." 

A  gleam  that  led  me  on  and  on  was  this 
[  H5  ] 


Gallant  Little  Wales 


bright-shining,  fragrant,  humble  cottage  life  of 
Wales,  with  its  much-needed  assurance,  amidst 
the  sorrows  of  our  present  times,  that  some  magic 
of  a  life  still  full  of  faith  is  lived  among  these 
solitary  hillsides,  among  busy  towns  and  in  shel- 
tered Welsh  valleys.  Into  human  difficulties, 
too,  did  my  gleam  lead  me,  as  gleams  have  a 
way  of  doing.  My  first  adventure  was  to  find  a 
cottage  called  "  Buarthau  "  (pronounced  Bee-ar- 
thai).  I  knew  that  it  was  on  the  hillside  beyond 
Hendra  Farm  outside  of  Dolwyddelan,  at  the 
head  of  that  valley,  the  Lledr,  which  Ruskin 
has  called  the  most  beautiful  in  the  world.  A 
child  who  spoke  very  little  English  summoned 
her  mother,  a  pale,  slender  woman  with  a  baby 
in  her  arms,  to  point  out  the  cottage  to  me. 
The  little  girl  led  me  and  we  climbed  the  steep 
hillside.  Beside  it  were  wild  roses,  cool  in  pink 
and  green;  beyond  us  was  a  magnificent  view 
of  Siabod,  Snowdon,  Aran,  and  Moel  Hebog, 
becoming  with  every  upward-mounting  step 
more  grand.  The  old  roof  of  the  sixteenth  or 
seventeenth  century  which  I  had  come  to  see 
was  partly  destroyed,  the  large  curved  princi- 
pals which  came  almost  to  the  ground  had  been 
well  rubbed  and  gnawed  by  the  teeth  of  kine. 

[  146] 


Cambrian  Cottages 


Under  a  tree  near  a  little  cottage  we  ate  our 
luncheon,  a  tree  which  accommodatingly  turned 
itself  into  a  harp.  Then  we  came  down,  across 
the  Lledr  River,  and  turned  and  entered  the 
village  where  the  heart  of  the  place  is  St.  Gwyd- 
delan's  Church,  built  about  1500  a.d.,  with  a 
rood  screen  removed  from  some  earlier  church, 
a  knocker  to  claim  sanctuary  still  upon  the 
door,  and  warm  hay  piled  high  and  spread  in 
the  sun  over  the  old  graves. 

There  was  another  day  when  I  was  in  search 
of  an  old  house  still  habitable,  but  of  the  same 
date  of  building  as  Buarthau.  From  Bettws-y- 
Coed  I  followed  slowly  up  a  long  hill,  from 
which  I  looked  down  into  an  ever-deepening 
valley,  where  lay  the  road  leading  up  past  the 
Conway  and  the  Lledr  to  Dolwyddelan.  After 
I  passed  Pentrevoelas,  I  picked  up  a  little  fel- 
low carrying  a  school-bag.  We  passed  a  big 
empty  graveyard  place  where  five  new  graves 
were  crowded  against  the  wall,  —  the  living 
were  planning  well  for  the  jostling  of  the  dead 
who  were  to  come, — then  I  put  the  little  fel- 
low down  by  the  chapel  where  his  mother  lived. 
The  road  to  Giler  grew  more  and  more  difficult. 
At  last  I  came  to  a  beautiful  old  house  with  a 

[  147  ] 


Gallant  L,ittle  Wales 


fortified  gate  and  high  surrounding  walls.  Out- 
side the  walls,  mother  and  daughter,  farmer  and 
farm  hands,  were  all  milking  the  cows.  They 
courteously  led  me  through  the  ancient  gateway, 
a  friendly  place  within,  for  not  only  did  the  cats 
run  to  meet  us,  but  also  the  pigs.  I  ascended  the 
outside  steps  of  the  fortified  gateway  into  a  room 
where  was  the  Pryce  coat  of  arms  and  the  date 
1623  upon  the  walls.  Then  we  went  into  the 
farmhouse  through  an  old  doorway  that  would 
be  the  joy  of  any  antiquary  who  might  behold 
it.  Even  this  was  fortified.  Within,  the  oak 
panelling,  the  oak  partitions,  the  seats  around 
the  walls,  the  deep,  small-paned,  narrow  win- 
dows, the  kitchen,  the  storeroom,  the  dairy,  the 
mill  —  all  were  as  they  had  been  four  hundred 
years  ago  —  a  little  the  worse  for  wear,  but  still 
staunch,  still  comely,  still  generous  and  hospit- 
able. One  fireplace  I  stood  before  was  twelve 
feet  long  and  four  or  five  feet  deep.  On  the 
way  home  I  saw  a  flock  of  lapwings  in  the 
meadow.  I  passed  the  chapel  corner  where 
the  little  fellow  was ;  I  saw  two  rabbits  rubbing 
noses  in  the  field;  and  then,  facing  toward  the 
sun,  which  was  setting  over  Siabod  and  the 
Ogwen  Valley,  I  followed  home. 

[  148  ] 


< 


J 

u 


-^ 
^ 

oq 


Cambrian  Cottages 


These  Welsh  cottages  and  granges  are  like  a 
well-made  person  or  a  well-made  life :  they  have 
nothing  to  conceal  They  reveal  their  construc- 
tion, and  their  beauty  inheres  in  this  revelation 
of  what  they  really  are.  Instead  of  being  all 
daubed  over  with  plaster  and  smeared  with  un- 
attractive paper,  their  joists  and  beams,  their 
panelled  oak  partitions,  the  ingle-heart  of  the 
house,  the  warm,  brown  oaken  dressers  and  tri- 
darn,  the  grandfather  clock  and  settles,  the  three- 
legged  tables  and  three-legged  chairs  form  a 
picture  of  simple  harmony,  which  at  its  best  it 
would  be  hard  to  rival  either  in  dignity  or 
homely  beauty.  I  am  not  referring  to  the  Welsh 
lodging-house  which  is  all  many  an  Englishman 
or  American  knows  in  Wales.  The  floor  of  the 
cottage  may  be  but  of  beaten  clay,  neatly  white- 
washed around  the  edge.  This,  however,  is  surely 
a  more  attractive  floor  covering  than  many  which 
cost,  even  before  they  leave  the  carpet  factory, 
a  good  deal  more.  Beautiful  rooms  are  these 
where,  from  the  lustre-ware,  the  pewter,  the  cop- 
per and  brass  and  latticed  windows,  many  a  les- 
son is  still  to  be  learned  by  some  of  us  who 
think  it  impossible  that  we  should  be  able  to 
take  anything  from  so  humble  a  place.  In  these 

C  H9  ] 


Gallant  Little  Wales 


Welsh  cottages  life  has  continued  more  or  less 
unchanged  in  a  beautiful  simplicity.  It  is  not 
merely  the  simplicity  imposed  by  poverty, — 
although  that  does  exist  to  a  depressing  extent 
in  Wales,  —  it  is  rather  their  sense  of  fitness, 
their  love  of  what  is  beautiful,  that  innate  in- 
stinct of  theirs,  not  only  for  the  right  word,  but 
also  for  the  right  beauty  of  a  room,  even  of  a 
kitchen.  When  they  would  imitate  under  the 
pressure  of  modern  fussiness  and  vulgarities, 
something  still  holds  them  back.  The  lodging- 
house  in  Wales  represents  a  concession  to 
modernity,  their  mistaken  and  delicate  tribute  to 
the  visitor.  It  is  the  Welsh  farmhouse  kitchen 
in  all  its  dignity  of  use  and  beauty  which  re- 
presents the  true  life  of  the  Cymri,  the  inerad- 
icable aesthetic  fineness  of  Gwalia.  In  Wales, 
and  at  a  time  when  the  world  pays  it  but 
scant  respect,  poetry  dwells  everywhere  and  is 
at  home.  The  grimiest  coal  centre,  the  dustiest 
slate  quarry  eating  into  the  very  bowels  of  the 
earth  and  the  skin  of  the  people,  cannot  drive 
poetry  and  music  away  from  Wales.  They 
dwell  by  the  doorway  of  the  whitewashed  cot- 
tage in  that  group  of  oaks,  or  under  that  shel- 
tering sycamore  and  the  cottage  roof  of  flower- 

[  150] 


Cambrian  Cottages 


ing  thatch,  in  the  water-split  stains  of  the  slates 
upon  the  roofs,  in  the  gleam  of  the  doorsill  over 
which  one  steps.  Here  in  these  Welsh  cottages 
is  simplicity  as  compelling,  because  more  hu- 
man and  not  less  unself-conscious,  as  that  of  the 
palace. 

Practically  every  characteristic  possessed  by 
the  Welsh  makes  for  love  of  home.  Their  very 
shyness  drives  them  through  the  house  door  to 
the  fireside,  before  all  that  is  best  can  be  revealed. 
Sensitive,  full  of  feeling,  gay  and  melancholy 
by  turns,  they  are  like  their  own  hills,  now 
sombre  and  now  bright.  It  is  temperament  that 
makes  the  music  of  the  Welsh  cottage,  its  pic- 
turesqueness,  its  romance.  Without  the  Cymric 
temperarrient  there  could  have  been  no  Welsh 
revivals,  no  invincible  Lloyd  George,  no  Eis- 
teddfodau.  The  delicacy  of  the  woman,  who  is 
always  the  home-maker,  inheres  in  the  Celt.  He 
feels  the  significance  of  the  home  with  such 
yearning  and  such  passion  that  it  is  almost  in- 
comprehensible to  his  fellows  of  coarser  fibre. 
It  was  that  feminine  love  of  home  which  made 
Celtic  chivalry  what  it  was.  And  I  dare  to  say 
that  it  is  still  that  element  which  makes  the 
humble  Welsh  cottage  what  it  is  to-day. 

[  151  ] 


Gallant  Little  Wales 


Those  qualities  which  caused  the  Cymri  to 
reverence  their  bards  and  esteem  learning  are 
the  qualities  at  work  in  their  lives  now.  The 
passionate  admiration  which  in  olden  times 
made  them  follow  a  leader  like  Llewelyn  the 
Great  or  a  lost  cause,  is  what  makes  them  shout 
by  the  tens  of  thousands  for  Lloyd  George  to- 
day and  a  winning  cause.  Their  low,  quiet 
voices,  their  gentle  ways,  their  spiritual  intens- 
ity, all  throw  a  glamour  about  the  lives  they 
lead.  One  does  not  expect  to  find  a  sage  in  yon 
little  cottage  where  the  village  bread  is  baked. 
Yet  he  is  there,  his  books  two  deep  on  every 
shelf  of  his  little  room,  his  lamp  burning  far 
into  the  night.  Nor  does  one  expect  to  find  a 
Welsh  Jenny  Lind  in  this  cot  whose  brass  door- 
sill  we  have  just  left;  but,  busy  about  her  work, 
a  voice  the  world  might  well  run  to  listen  to 
follows  us  down  these  Welsh  upland  meadows. 
And  behind  that  counter,  over  which  we  buy 
sweets  for  the  children,  is  an  historian  and  anti- 
quary; in  yon  post-ofBce  a  bard,  —  even  the 
very  farmer  spends  his  leisure  not  as  other  farm- 
ers do;  and  nothing  is  as  many,  in  their  com- 
monplaceness,  their  German  Gemeinheity  expect 
and  demand  that  it  shall  be. 


Cambrian  Cottages 


It  is  a  far  cry,  some  may  think,  from  the 
"Mabinogion,"  one  of  the  possessions  of  all  the 
world,  to  a  little  Welsh  cottage.  No,  it  is  not 
a  far  cry;  it  is  a  history,  interrupted  here  and 
there  by  haunting  words,  broken  by  words  not 
to  be  recovered,  but  still  a  history  from  those 
first  (?)  "cyttiau  gwyddelod,"  with  their  rude 
music  of  harp  and  their  tales  read  from  a  re- 
volving wooden  book,  down  to  this  cot  whose 
shelter  we  have  sought  in  a  valley  or  upland 
meadow,  even  as  Wordsworth  some  one  hun- 
dred years  ago  or  Shelley  sought  such  shelter  at 
the  base  of  Snowdon.  It  is  a  far  cry,  some  may 
think,  from  that  smoke  curling  out  of  the  gable 
end  of  the  hall  in  the  "  Dream  of  Rhonabwy  " 
to  this  ingle  by  which  we  have  sat.  No,  it  is  a 
development,  a  continuance  marked  only  by 
the  steps  of  man's  desire  to  strengthen  and  make 
more  perfect  his  home  here,  forgetting  that 
Chaucer  has  told  us  in  his  poem  "Truth": 

*'  Her  nis  non  horn,  her  nis  but  wildernesse  : 
Forth,  pilgrim,  forth  !  Forth,  beste,  out  of  thy  stal ! " 

For  the  gray  of  a  gray  day  outside,  here  by  this 
hearth  is  the  rose  of  fire,  the  tongue  of  flame  by 
which  we  warm  ourselves,  the  fluttering  of  those 

[  153] 


Gallant  Little  VFales 


dreams  beneath  which  we  hide  ourselves  as 
under  a  sheltering  wing.  The  passionate  heart 
of  a  passionately  sensitive  people  is  this  hearth 
and  flame  of  a  Welsh  cottage.  To  have  lived 
by  it  is  to  have  lost  the  need  to  hear  those  tonic 
words  of  Matthew  Arnold,  for  here,  indeed,  the 
Celt  may  still,  in  his  dreams,  his  love,  his  song, 
react  against  the  despotism  of  fact.  And  outside 
is  a  world  of  magic,  sometimes  hostile  but  more 
often  friendly,  a  world  of  beauty  and  of  enchant- 
ment. From  the  "Dream  of  Rhonabwy,"  its 
women,  its  homes,  its  organized  life,  its  beauty, 
down  to  the  castle  and  cottage  in  Carnarvon  or 
Conway,  it  is  but  one  history,  however  many 
stages  that  history  may  have  passed  through; 
and  until  the  traveller  or  the  alien  in  Wales 
realizes  this  fact,  he  passes  blindfold  through  its 
valleys  and  over  its  mountains  and  in  and  out 
of  its  cottage  doors. 


IX 

Castles  and  Abbeys  in  North  Wales 

Old  Time  .   .   .   gentlest  among  the  Thralls 
Of  Destiny,  upon  these  wounds  hath  laid 
His  lenient  touches,  soft  as  light  that  falls, 
From  the  wan  Moon,  upon  the  towers  and  walls, 
Light  deepening  the  profoundest  sleep  of  shade 

Wordsworth,  "Ruins  of  a  Castle  in  North  Wales.'* 

The  more  one  lives  in  Wales  the  more  one 
recognizes  the  need  for  nonconformity.  The 
Established  Church  has  frequently  conformed 
too  much,  certainly  to  the  bars  found  in  all  pub- 
lic inns,  and  probably  to  the  "jorum  "  measure 
set  by  castle  life  and  even  by  the  abbey  life  that 
is  now  no  more.  No  doubt,  if  there  were  less 
poverty,  there  might  be  less  drinking;  on  the 
other  hand,  if  there  were  less  drinking,  there 
would  certainly  be  less  poverty.  Even  now,  as 
I  write  in  the  most  respectable  old  inn  in  Den- 
bigh, —  the  place  where  all  the  gentry  go, — 
for  an  inn  sign  I  am  looking  out  on  three  liquor 
kegs  crossed  one  above  another  with  a  bunch 
of  grapes  pendant. 

But  the  hill  on  which  this  quaint,  small,  pro- 

C  155  ] 


Gallant  Little  Wales 


sperous  town  of  Denbigh  is  built  does  the  best 
it  can  by  its  steepness  to  keep  the  people  in 
good  condition.  In  Welsh  Denbigh  Castle  is 
called  "Castell  Caledfryn-yn-Rhos,"  the  "Castle 
of  the  Craggy  Hill  in  Rhos."  From  the  "  bot- 
tom," as  the  natives  call  the  foot  of  the  town 
and  hill,  —  they  are  identical,  —  it  is  a  sheer 
climb  to  the  top  where  the  castle  is  situated, 
and  in  that  climb  one  has  traversed  the  entire 
village.  Close  by  the  castle  is  the  Church  of 
St.  Hilary,  more  or  less  falling  to  pieces  now, 
where  once  masses  were  said  for  the  soul  of 
Henry  de  Lacy.  Within  the  castle  enclosure,  in 
a  tiny  cottage,  John  Henry  Rowlands,  or  Stan- 
ley, the  African  explorer,  was  born.  Very  eager 
is  Denbigh  to  claim  this  distinguished  man,  and 
but  little  can  you  get  them  to  say  about  the 
brutal  treatment  which  drove  him  away  from 
home  and  made  him  a  wanderer  upon  the  face 
of  the  earth.  Denbigh  claims  Twm  o'r  Nant 
also,  —  he  is  buried  at  the  bottom  of  the  town 
in  Whitchurch, — but  not  content  with  claim- 
ing him,  they  canonize  him  with  the  absurd 
name  of  "Welsh  Shakespeare."  Born  in  1739, 
he  developed,  without  any  educational  advant- 
ages whatsoever,  remarkable  skill  in  the  writ- 

[  156  ] 


Castles  and  Abbeys  in  North  Whales 

ing  of  interludes,  which  for  many  years  he  him- 
self played  up  and  down  the  country,  and  by 
which,  because  he  championed  the  cause  of  the 
people  "  against  the  evils  of  the  day,"  he  got 
the  ear  of  his  popular  audiences.  Denbigh  claims 
Dr.  Samuel  Johnson,  too,  and  exaggerates  his 
brief  visit  to  Middleton  at  Gwaenynog.  They 
have  even  photographed  one  cottage  and  called 
it  Johnson's. 

A  few  miles  west  from  Denbigh,  at  Rhudd- 
lan,  they  have  made  the  most  of  their  history, 
but  it  is  not  recent ;  rather  it  is  standardized  and 
dignified  by  an  antiquity  which  antedates  even 
the  ivy-covered  ruins  of  the  castle.  There  star- 
lings flutter  in  and  out,  —  perhaps  a  descendant 
of  that  starling  which  Branwen  had  taught  to 
speak  and  who  carried  across  the  sea  to  Carnar- 
von, to  her  brother,  Bendigeid  Vran,  the  tale  of 
her  sufferings.  There,  too,  are  the  fireplaces  of  an 
ample  hospitality  which  is  no  more.  I  thought 
of  the  promise  Edward  had  made  in  Rhuddlan 
that  he  would  give  the  people  a  prince  bom 
in  Wales  and  who  could  speak  no  English.  I 
thought  of  that  battle  between  Saxon  and  Welsh, 
in  769,  on  Morfa  (marsh)  Rhuddlan,  which,  be- 
fore our  eyes,  stretched  gently  and  mysteriously 

[  157  ] 


Gallant  Little  Wales 


away  to  the  sea,  and  of  the  song  that  had 
commemorated  it  and  of  the  defeat  of  the 
Cymru :  — 

"  Calm  the  sun  sets  o'er  the  hills  of  Carnarvon, 
Deep  fall  the  shadows  on  valley  and  lea, 
Scarce  a  breath  ripples  the  breast  of  old  ocean, 
Faint  on  the  ear  falls  the  roll  of  the  sea." 

Also  in  the  old  song  is  heard  again  the  din  of 
weapons,  the  hissing  of  arrows,  and  the  cries  of 
those  who  fought  and  those  who  fell.  Even  in  its 
English  translation  it  is  still  a  stirring  old  song. 
On  the  coast,  a  few  miles  north  of  Rhuddlan, 
is  one  of  the  most  famous  castles  in  British  his- 
tory, Flint  Castle;  but  a  dolorous,  sorrowful  old 
place  it  is  now,  set  down  in  the  midst  of  belch- 
ing smokestacks  and  a  sooty  modern  life  that 
cares  nothing  for  it.  At  Flint  the  dismantling 
of  Richard  II  was  performed.  Froissart,  the 
chronicler,  speaking  of  Richard's  departure  from 
Flint  Castle  in  the  custody  of  the  Duke  of  Lan- 
caster, tells  us  a  strange  story.  King  Richard 
had  a  beautiful  greyhound  who  loved  him  be- 
yond measure.  As  the  Duke  and  the  King  were 
conversing  in  the  court  of  the  castle,  the  grey- 
hound was  loosed  and  immediately  ran  to  the 

[  158  ] 


Castles  and  Abbeys  in  North  Wales 

Duke,  paying  him  all  the  attentions  he  had  al- 
ways given  to  the  King.  The  Duke  asked  what 
was  the  meaning  of  this  fondness.  "  Cousin," 
replied  the  King,  "  it  means  a  great  deal  for  you 
and  very  little  for  me." 

Above  Flint,  on  the  River  Dee,  is  Hawarden 
Castle,  the  new  residence  and  the  old  ruin  made 
famous  to  us  in  recent  years  by  the  fact  that 
William  Ewart  Gladstone  lived  there.  And  there, 
centuries  ago,  Llewelyn,  the  great  Welsh  prince, 
first  saw  his  Eleanor.  The  people  in  this  vicin- 
ity are  called  "  Harden  Jews."  In  this  connec- 
tion an  interesting  story  from  legendary  history 
is  told.  It  was  in  the  year  946  that  Cynan  ap 
Ellis  ap  Anarawd  was  king  of  North  Wales  and 
a  Christian  church  stood  there.  In  this  church 
was  a  roodloft  surmounted  by  a  figure  of  the 
Virgin  bearing  a  holy  cross  in  her  hands.  The 
summer  had  been  hot  and  dry  and  the  people 
began  to  pray  for  rain.  Lady  Trawst,  wife  of 
Sy tsylt,  governor  of  the  castle,  was  one  of  those 
who  prayed  most  often  to  the  image.  One  day 
while  she  was  on  her  knees  the  cross  fell  and 
killed  her.  The  weather  continued  hot  and  the 
indignant  people  decided  to  bring  the  rood  to 
trial  for  the  murder  of  Lady  Trawst.  This  was 
[  159  ]      • 


Gallant  Little  Wales 


done  and  the  Virgin  and  cross  sentenced  to  be 
hanged,  but  Spar  of  Mancot,  one  of  the  jury, 
thought  drowning  would  be  better.  Finally  the 
judgment  was  partially  amended  and  the  image 
was  laid  upon  the  beach  and  the  tide  did  the 
rest.  It  was  carried  up  to  the  walls  of  Chester, 
and  the  citizens  of  that  town,  ancient  even  in 
946,  reverently  took  it  up  and  buried  it,  setting 
above  it  a  monument  with  this  inscription  upon 
it:  — 

"  The  Jews  their  God  did  crucify, 
The  Hardeners  theirs  did  drown, 
Because  their  wants  she  'd  not  supply, 
And  lies  under  this  cold  stone." 

And  from  this  time  forth  the  river,  which  had 
been  called  the  Usk,  was  called  Rood  Die  or 
Dee. 

It  is  not  possible  to  re-create  that  olden  castle 
life  in  Wales.  A  fragment  here  and  a  fragment 
there  one  finds,  and  when  the  broken  life  has 
been  put  together  again,  as  in  the  "Mabinogion," 
the  Norman  influence  is  more  than  a  varnish  to 
its  ancient  surface,  —  it  is  often  colour,  with 
occasionally  an  entirely  new  figure  painted  in. 
Glimpses  of  the  palace  life  do  we  get,  of  the 

[  160  ] 


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Castles  and  Abbeys  in  North  Wales 

sleeping-rooms  and  halls  and  chambers,  of  beau- 
tiful buildings,  of  youths  and  pages,  of  vestures 
of  silk  and  gold  and  yellow  robes  of  shining 
satin.  Pictures  of  maidens,  too,  there  are,  who 
live  for  us  still  as  if  they  had  not  vanished  from 
within  walls  which  Time  has  partially  destroyed. 
One  maiden  there  was  who  was  made  from  the 
blossoms  of  the  oak  and  of  the  broom  and  of 
the  yellow  meadow  sweet,  and  whom  they  called 
Blodeuwedd  or  Flower-face.  Another,  not  Blod- 
wen,  but  Olwen,  she  who  was  clothed  in  a  "  robe 
of  flame-coloured  silk  .  .  .  more  yellow  was  her 
head  than  the  flower  of  the  broom,  and  her  skin 
was  whiter  than  the  foam  of  the  wave,  and  fairer 
were  her  hands  and  her  fingers  than  the  blos- 
soms of  the  wood  anemone  amidst  the  spray  of 
the  meadow  fountain.  .  .  .  Four  white  trefoils 
sprung  up  wherever  she  trod.  And  therefore  was 
she  called  Olwen."  Pictures,  too,  there  are  in 
the  "  Mabinogion  "  and  elsewhere  of  the  castles 
in  which  these  maidens  embroidered,  sitting  in 
golden  chairs  and  clad  in  yellow  satin.  One  de- 
scription there  is  in  "The  Lady  of  the  Fountain," 
which  is  a  vivid  picture  of  a  Welsh  castle  : 
"  And  at  length  it  chanced  that  I  came  to  the 
fairest  valley  in  the  world,  wherein  were  trees  of 
[  i6i  ] 


Gallant  Little  Wales 


equal  growth ;  and  a  river  ran  through  the  val- 
ley, and  a  path  was  by  the  side  of  the  river.  And 
I  followed  the  path  until  midday,  and  I  continued 
my  journey  along  the  remainder  of  the  valley 
until  the  evening :  and  at  the  extremity  of  a 
plain  I  came  to  a  large  and  lustrous  castle,  at  the 
foot  of  which  was  a  torrent."  The  fair  valley,  the 
path  by  the  riverside,  the  lustrous  castle,  the  tor- 
rent—  all  are  still  a  part  of  the  life  of  Wales  to- 
day. Again,  for  the  mere  opening  of  a  book,  we 
may  see  knights  in  their  encounters  as  of  old : 
the  horse  that  pricks  forward,  the  furious  blows 
upon  the  faces  of  the  shields,  the  broken  armour 
and  bursting  girths,  and  then  the  battle  on  foot, 
their  arms  striking  sparks,  and  blood  and  sweat 
filling  their  eyes.  Nowhere  in  all  literature  is 
there  a  more  beautiful  picture  of  a  horse  than  in 
Kilhwch  and  Olwen ;  "  And  the  youth  pricked 
forth  upon  a  steed  with  head  dappled  gray,  of 
four  winters  old,  firm  of  limb,  with  shell-formed 
hoofs,  having  a  bridle  of  linked  gold  on  his  head, 
and  upon  him  a  saddle  of  costly  gold.  And  in 
the  youth's  hand  were  two  spears  of  silver,  sharp, 
well-tempered,  headed  with  steel,  three  ells  in 
length,  of  an  edge  to  wound  the  wind,  and  cause 
blood  to  flow,  and  swifter  than  the  fall  of  the 

[  162] 


Castles  and  Abbeys  in  North  Wales 

dewdrop  from  the  blade  of  reed-grass  upon  the 
earth  when  the  dew  of  June  is  at  the  heaviest.  A 
gold-hiked  sword  was  upon  his  thigh,  the  blade  of 
which  was  of  gold,  bearing  a  cross  of  inlaid  gold  of 
the  hue  of  the  lightning  of  heaven ;  his  war-horn 
was  of  ivory.  Before  him  were  two  brindled, 
white-breasted  greyhounds,  having  strong  collars 
of  rubies  about  their  necks,  reaching  from  the 
shoulder  to  the  ear.  And  the  one  that  was  on 
the  left  side  bounded  across  to  the  right  side, 
and  the  one  on  the  right  to  the  left,  and  like 
two  sea-swallows  sported  around  him.  And  his 
courser  cast  up  four  sods  with  his  four  hoofs, 
like  four  swallows  in  the  air,  about  his  head, 
now  above,  now  below.  About  him  was  a  four- 
cornered  cloth  of  purple,  and  an  apple  of  gold 
was  at  each  corner,  and  every  one  of  the  apples 
was  of  the  value  of  an  hundred  kine.  And  there 
was  precious  gold  of  the  value  of  three  hundred 
kine  upon  his  shoes,  and  upon  his  stirrups,  from 
his  knee  to  the  tip  of  his  toe.  And  the  blade  of 
grass  bent  not  beneath  him,  so  light  was  his 
courser's  tread  as  he  journeyed  towards  the  gate 
of  Arthur's  Palace." 

Charming  pictures  of  friendship  there  are,  too, 
lived  within  castle  and  abbey ;  and  descriptions 

[  ^(^z  ] 


Gallant  Little  Whales 


of  the  love  of  birds  and  journeys  taken  upon 
sea  and  land;  and  harsh  and  barbaric  touches  to 
remind  us  of  a  past  still  more  ancient  and  of  a 
cruelty  still  more  primitive.  Possible  flashes  do 
we  get  of  the  humour  of  this  olden  life  :  the  re- 
freshing gentleman  in  Branwen,  the  daughter  of 
Llyr,  whom  no  house  could  ever  contain ;  Ben- 
digeid  Vran,  the  brother  of  Branwen,  that  good 
brother  who  sat  upon  the  rock  of  Harlech  look- 
ing over  the  sea,  and  all  unconsciously  welcom- 
ing those  who  were  to  break  the  heart  of  the 
sister  he  loved.  Poetry  and  wisdom  also  there 
are  in  this  ancient  life :  the  Coranians,  who,  how- 
ever low  words  might  be  spoken,  if  the  wind 
met  that  speech,  it  was  made  known  to  them; 
and  Arthur  granting  a  boon  in  words  which  are 
a  poem  in  themselves,  —  "  as  far  as  the  wind 
dries,  and  the  rain  moistens,  and  the  sun  re- 
volves, and  the  sea  encircles,  and  the  earth  ex- 
tends." "  There  is  no  remedy  for  that  which  is 
past,  be  it  as  it  may,"  said  Luned.  And  in  the 
"  Mabinogion,"  as  in  every  life,  there  was  one 
door  which  when  those  who  were  bearing  the 
head  of  Bendigeid  Vran  to  London  opened  and 
looked  through,  "  they  were  as  conscious  of  all 
the  evils  they  had  ever  sustained,  and  of  all  the 

•    [  164  ] 


Castles  and  Abbeys  in  North  Wales 

friends  and  companions  they  had  lost,  and  of  all 
the  misery  that  had  befallen  them,  as  if  it  had 
all  happened  in  that  very  spot." 

South  from  Flint  and  south  from  Hawarden, 
yet  near  the  windings  of  the  river  Dee,  is  Castle 
Dinas  Bran,  "Crow  Castle,"  as  the  English  call 
it,  mistakenly  turning  "Bran,"  a  word  whose 
actual  meaning  is  unknown,  into  "Crow." 
Scarcely  a  stone  of  this  very  famous  and  ancient 
old  castle  situated  on  a  high  hill  is  left  intact. 
The  very  rubble  of  its  walls  is  exposed.  Of  the 
castle  there  is  not  enough  left  to  repay  any  one 
for  a  visit,  except  a  lover  of  desolation.  Here,  in 
another  land,  are  walls  like  those  of  Balclutha,  and 
desolate  are  they.  Here  the  fox  looks  out  of  the 
window  and  the  rank  grass  waves  about  its  head, 
and  here  on  the  wind  the  song  of  mourning  lifts 
itself  bewailing  the  days  that  are  gone.  Yet  from 
the  valley  below,  with  its  quaint  old  town  of 
Llangollen,  its  wonderful  Abbey  of  Valle  Crucis, 
and  the  shimmering  of  the  running  waters  of 
the  river  Dee,  the  present  is  a  reassuring  one. 
Smoke  curls  up  cheerfully  from  scores  of  house- 
hold chimneys.  The  sun  shines  down  upon  the 
abbey  walls,  upon  the  chapter  house,  still  intact, 
and  upon  the  broken  walls  of  the  church  itself 

[165] 


Gallant  Little  Wales 


"  Ivy'd  Valle  Crucis ;  time  decay'd 
Dim  on  the  brink  of  Deva's  wandering  floods, 
Your  ivy'd  arch  glittenng  through  the  tangled  shade, 
Your  gray  hills  towering  o'er  your  night  of  woods  \ 
Deep  in  the  vale  recesses  as  you  stand, 
And,  desolately  great." 

Inseparable  from  and  a  part  of  the  spiritual  beauty 
of  this  scene  is  the  thought  of  the  old  blind  rec- 
tor, who  is  now  custodian  of  the  abbey  and  who 
still  speaks  lovingly  of  the  beauty  of  the  things 
he  can  no  longer  see.  He  has  been  there  twenty- 
nine  years,  and  through  many  of  those  years  he 
has  been  going  blind.  Yet  he  told  us  cheerfully 
that  he  was  greatly  encouraged  by  our  interest. 
"I  never  destroy  anything  that  is  old,"  he  said; 
"  I  stick  to  the  old."  As  we  stood  there  talking, 
the  lovely  little  white  English  daisies  looking 
up  from  the  grass  at  us,  the  venerable  old  man 
told  us  something  of  his  work.  He  was  much 
discouraged  because  people  were  not  interested, 
and  even  as  he  leaned  on  his  stick,  doubtless 
hoping  for  other  visitors,  his  ear-sight  quickened 
by  the  eye-sight  he  had  lost,  people  were  pass- 
ing by  outside  walking  toward  the  Pillar  of 
Eliseg  and  a  wooded  vale  beyond. 

In  Llangollen,  the  village  near  the  abbey,  lived 
[i66] 


Castles  and  Abbeys  in  North  Wales 

and  died  the  ladies  of  Llangollen,  two  dear, 
quaint,  sentimental  souls,  with  personalities  suf- 
ficiently marked  and  fearless  so  that  they  were 
unafraid  to  be  themselves.  Louisa  Costello,  in 
her  account  of  a  Welsh  tour,  gives  them  rather 
sharp  treatment.  She  says  that  they  were  foolish, 
condescending,  proud,  vain,  and  pompous,  yet 
she  admits  that  they  were  charitable  and  con- 
siderate of  their  neighbours.  Of  their  friendship 
she  has  nothing  good  to  say.  In  a  word,  they 
were  a  couple  of  eccentric  sentimentalists  and 
both  frightfully  iigly.  With  the  larger  charity 
of  the  man,  Wordsworth,  who  paid  them  a  visit 
and  wrote  them  a  sonnet,  described  their  ap- 
pearance in  the  following  words,  "  So  oddly  was 
one  of  these  ladies  attired  that  we  took  her,  at  a 
little  distance,  for  a  Roman  Catholic  priest,  with 
a  crucifix  and  relics  hung  at  his  neck.  They 
were  without  caps,  their  hair,  bushy  and  white 
as  snow,  which  contributed  to  the  mistake."  In 
the  sonnet  addressed  to  them  there  are,  among 
others,  two  lines  of  pure  tribute :  — 

"  The  Vale  of  Friendship,  let  this  spot 
Be  named ;  there,  faithful  to  a  low  roofed  Cot, 
On  Deva's  banks,  ye  have  abode  so  long; 

[  167  ] 


Gallant  Little  Wales 


Sisters  in  love,  a  love  allowed  to  climb, 

Even  on  this  earth,  above  the  reach  of  Time." 

Lady  Eleanor  Butler  was  the  daughter  of  the 
Earl  of  Ormond.  She  was  born  in  Dublin  and 
was  both  wealthy  and  beautiful.  The  Honourable 
Miss  Ponsonby,  a  member  of  an  ancient  family, 
was  an  early  friend  of  Lady  Eleanor.  She,  too, 
was  born  in  Dublin,  and  both  lost  their  parents 
at  the  same  time.  They  loved  independence  and 
did  not  love  their  suitors.  Many  things  drew 
them  together  and,  as  Wordsworth  aptly  phrases 
it,  they  retired  into  notice  in  the  Vale  of  Llan- 
gollen. Now  they  lie  buried  there,  their  faithful 
servant,  Mrs.  Mary  Carryll,  lying  in  an  equal 
grave  beside  them. 

In  this  neighbourhood  are  many  castles, 
among  them  Chirk  the  property  of  Lord  How- 
ard de  Walden,  and  Ruthin  Castle  which  is  not 
very  interesting.  About  northwest  from  Llan- 
gollen lies  the  old  town  of  Conway,  with  its  cas- 
tle and  its  rare  old  Plas  Mawr.  Suetonius  says 
that  the  chief  motive  assigned  by  the  Romans 
for  the  invasion  of  Britain  was  that  they  might 
obtain  possession  of  the  Conway  pearl  fisheries. 
One  of  the  Conway  pearls,  now  no  longer  much 
thought  of,  was  placed  in  the  regal  crown  and 
[  i68] 


Castles  and  Abbeys  in  North  Wales 

presented  by  Sir  R.  Wynne  to  Richard  II.  The 
picturesqueness  of  Conway  streets  is  greater  than 
that  of  any  other  North  Walian  town.  Little 
gable  ends  look  out  and  down  upon  the  streets 
like  curious  eyes.  The  houses  are  irregular  and 
there  are  odd  turns  and  twistings  of  the  streets ; 
cobblestones  and  old  flagstones  and  an  occa- 
sional black-and-white  house;  and  everywhere 
glimpses  through  castle  gate  or  over  castle  wall. 
The  exterior  of  the  castle  is  still  singularly  per- 
fect ;  only  one  part  of  it  seems  to  be  falling,  that 
nearest  the  river  and  looking  out  upon  the  sea« 
Overlooking  the  town,  upon  the  river,  is  Queen 
Eleanor's  oratory :  — 

"  In  her  oryall  then  she  was 

Closyd  well  with  royall  glas : 

Fulfullyd  it  was  with  ymagery, 

Every  windowe  by  and  by, 

On  each  side  had  ther  a  gynne 

Sperde  with  manie  a  dyvers  pynne." 

It  matters  not  now  whether  this  was  a  place  of 
prayer  or  place  in  which  the  Queen  arrayed  her- 
self Pennant,  when  he  made  his  famous  "  Tour 
in  Wales,"  described  Conway  as  castle  of  match- 
less magnificence,  and  a  matchlessly  magnificent 
Castle  it  still  is. 

[  169  ] 


Gallant  Liittle  Wales 


It  takes  but  a  single  effort  of  the  imagination 
to  see  again  the  life  within  that  ancient  harp- 
shaped  town  as  it  must  have  been  even  so  re- 
cently as  seventy-five  years  ago:  the  varying 
colours  of  the  peasants'  dresses,  their  large  mar- 
ket-baskets and  umbrellas,  their  bright  handker- 
chiefs, the  tall  North  Wahan  beaver  hats  and 
frilled  caps  peeping  out  beneath,  the  bright 
cheeks  and  even  brighter  pink  cotton  jackets 
worn  by  the  girls.  Healthy,  well-made  peasants 
those,  neat  of  garb  and  gay  of  heart,  good-look- 
ing, both  men  and  women.  Again  the  old  mar- 
ket-place, beyond  Plas  Mawr  and  the  church, 
rings  with  their  laughter  and  their  lively  barter, 
and  the  clatter  of  their  ponies'  hoofs;  again  the 
soft  voices  of  the  women  are  heard  and  the 
heavier  voices  of  the  men ;  again  they  mount 
their  horses,  sometimes  double,  and  ride  away 
out  of  the  lively  town  to  the  silent  hills  beyond, 
through  GyfSn,  where  the  colours  in  the  old  bar- 
rel vault  of  the  church  must  have  been  even 
brighter  than  they  are  now;  perhaps  they  go  as 
far  as  some  hillside  like  that  on  which  Llange- 
lynin  still  keeps  its  gray  sanctuary.  Again  down 
upon  the  old  town  settles  a  double  silence.  The 
day's  work  is  done ;  twilight  has  come,  and  over 

[  170  ] 


Castles  and  Abbeys  in  North  Wales 

all  reigns  a  stillness  which  is  as  that  of  a  Welsh 
Sabbath. 

Through  the  Vale  of  Conway,  past  Trevriw 
and  Llanrwst  with  its  Gwyder  Castle,  past  beau- 
tiful Bettws-y-Coed  and  Capel  Curig,  and  on 
to  the  Pass  of  Llanberis,  a  walk  of  unrivalled 
beauty,  there  appears  at  last,  as  one  travels  down 
to  Pen-y-Pass  (the  head  of  the  pass),  the  single 
tower  of  the  ruined  castle  of  Dolbadarn.  A 
Welsh  triad  says  there  are  three  primary  requis- 
ites for  poetry:  an  eye  that  can  see  nature,  a 
heart  that  can  feel  nature,  and  a  resolution  that 
dares  follow  nature.  No  one  can  come  down  from 
this  road  over  the  towering  summits  of  Snow- 
don  to  the  little  green  valley  in  which  Dolba- 
darn lies  without,  for  the  time,  becoming  a 
poet,  even  to  the  resolution  that  dares  follow 
the  spiritual  counsels  which  come  from  sky  and 
mountain  and  rushing  stream  and  the  very  rocks 
that  fill  this  valley.  "Nature  has  here,"  says 
Camden,  "  reared  huge  groups  of  mountains,  as 
if  she  intended  to  bind  the  island  fast  to  the 
bowels  of  the  earth,  and  make  a  safe  retreat  for 
Britons  in  the  time  of  war.  For  here  are  so 
many  crags  and  rocks,  so  many  wooded  valleys, 
rendered  impassable  by  so  many  lakes,  that  the 

[  171  ] 


Gallant  Little  Wales 


lightest  troops,  much  less  an  army,  could  never 
find  their  way  among  them.  These  mountains 
may  be  truly  called  the  British  Alps;  for,  be- 
sides that  they  are  the  highest  in  the  whole 
island,  they  are,  like  the  Alps,  bespread  with 
broken  crags  on  every  side,  all  surrounding  one 
which,  towering  in  the  centre,  far  above  the 
rest,  lifts  its  head  so  loftily,  as  if  it  meant  not 
only  to  threaten,  but  to  thrust  it  into  the  sky." 
The  better  one  comes  to  know  the  castles  of 
North  Wales,  the  more  is  one  impressed  with 
the  extraordinary  ability  shown  in  fortifying 
every  access  into  the  country.  Dolbadarn  itself 
is  ancient ;  whether  it  dates  from  before  or  after 
the  Roman  Conquest  is  doubtful ;  it  was  with 
the  thought  of  Llanberis  Pass  in  mind  that  Ten- 
nyson wrote  his  "Golden  Year";  it  was  there 
that  he  heard 

"  the  great  echo  flap 
And  buflFet  round  the  hill  from  bluff  to  bluff." 

Here  in  this  castle  Owen  Goch  was  imprisoned 
by  his  brother  Llewelyn.  To  this  prisoner  a 
bard,  Howel  Voel  ap  GrifH  ap  Pwyll  Gwyddel, 
composed  his  Welsh  awdl,  or  ode,  called  "  The 
Captive  of  Dolbadarn."  The  feeling  in  this 
[  172  ] 


o 

O 

o 


p 

H 


Castles  and  Abbeys  in  North  Wales 

poem  is  still  quick  even  after  all  the  changes  of 
the  centuries  and  even  with  all  the  loss  from 
translation:  — 

"  His  palace  gates  no  more  unclose. 

No  harp  is  heard  within  his  hall, 

His  friends  are  vassals  to  his  foes, 

Grief  and  despair  have  vanquished  all. 
He,  the  defender,  —  he,  the  good  and  just,  — 
Is  gone  j  his  name,  his  honour,  in  the  dust ! 

"  He  prized  but  treasures  to  bestow. 
He  cherish'd  state  but  to  be  free; 
None  from  his  walls  unsped  might  go, 
To  all  he  gave,  but  most  to  me ! 

"  Ruddy  his  cheeks  as  morning's  light. 
His  ready  lance  was  firm  and  bright,  ' 
The  crimson  stains  that  on  it  glow 
Tell  of  the  Saxon's  overthrow. 

"Shame,  that  a  prince  like  this  should  lie 
An  outcast,  in  captivity. 
And  oh !  what  years  of  ceaseless  shame. 
Should  cloud  the  Lord  of  Snowdon's  name!" 

Professor  O.  M.  Edwards,  in  his  book  called 
"  Wales,"  describes  Dolbadarn  as  the  last  home 
of  Welsh  independence. 

[  173  ] 


Gallant  Little  Wales 


Hundreds  of  years  before  the  sad,  peace-lov- 
ing life  of  Llewelyn  had  played  its  great  part  in 
Welsh  history,  in  the  valley  that  runs  from  the 
head  of  the  pass  along  the  low  margin  of  beau- 
tiful Gwynant  Lake,  by  a  little  river  that  talks 
gayly  in  all  weathers  but  most  gayly  in  the 
stormiest,  past  Llyn  (lake)  Dinas  to  Beddgelert, 
—  in  this  valley  is  situated  on  Dinas  Emrys 
some  fragments  and  traces  of  one  of  the  oldest 
and  most  important  strongholds  in  Great  Brit- 
ain. This  was  the  fort  of  Merlin  who  "  called 
up  spirits  from  the  vasty  deep."  There  is  melan- 
choly and  romantic  interest  to  be  found  on  the 
summit  of  Dinas  Emrys,  tracing  what  still  re- 
mains. Something  there  is,  perhaps  enough  for 
the  archaeologist  to  re-create  all  that  has  been 
lost.  On  this  same  road,  some  thirteen  miles 
beyond,  lies  Carnarvon  Castle,  of  whose  history 
and  beauty  I  have  written  in  "  The  City  of  the 
Prince  of  Wales." 

In  the  "Mabinogion"  there  are  wild-wood 
touches  showing  aspects  of  the  life  the  Cymru 
had  lived.  The  redactor  of  the  old  story  of  Bran- 
wen  says :  "  Then  they  went  on  to  Harlech  .  .  . 
and  there  came  three  birds  and  began  singing 
unto  them  a  certain  song,  and  all  the  songs 

[  174  ] 


Castles  and  Abbeys  in  North  Wales 

they  had  ever  heard  were  unpleasant  compared 
thereto ;  and  the  birds  seemed  to  them  to  be  at 
a  great  distance  from  them  over  the  sea,  yet  they 
appeared  as  distinct  as  if  they  were  close  by." 
And  again,  "  In  Harlech  you  will  be  feasting 
seven  years,  the  birds  of  Rhiannon  singing  unto 
you  the  while."  Just  as  the  "Dream  of  Maxen 
Wledig  "  is  in  a  sense  the  story  of  Carnarvon 
Castle,  so  is  this  tale  of  Branwen,  the  "fair- 
bosomed,"  full  of  pictures  and  suggestions  of 
Harlech  Castle,  Bendigeid  Vran  (the  blessed) 
sitting  on  a  rock  and  looking  out  to  sea,  — 
across  that  enchanted  bay,  on  the  other  side  of 
which  lies  Criccieth  Castle,  while  the  King  of 
Ireland,  Matholwch,  his  ships  flying  pennants 
of  satin,  comes  wooing  the  sister  of  Branwen.  A 
strange  story  this  which  has  come  out  of  that 
old  castle  stronghold,  its  royal  Irish  lover,  its 
good  Bendigeid  Vran,  its  beautiful  Branwen, 
the  tame  starlings  and  the  singing-birds  of  Rhi- 
annon, and  that  cry  of  Branwen,  "Alas,  woe  is 
me  that  I  was  ever  born " ;  and  after  that  cry, 
the  heart  that  broke  and  was  buried  in  the  four- 
sided  grave  on  the  banks  of  the  Alaw. 

Harlech  Castle  was  probably  originally  built 
about  the  middle  of  the  sixth  century  by  a  Brit- 

[  175] 


Gallant  Little  Wales 


ish  prince.  Edward  I  constructed  the  present 
castle  on  the  ruins  of  the  former  one.  It  was 
finished  in  the  thirteenth  century  and  became 
the  seat  of  many  conflicts  between  Owen 
Glendwr  and  the  English.  Thither  heroic  Mar- 
garet of  Anjou  fled,  following  the  battle  of 
Northampton.  It  was  the  last  of  the  castles  to 
hold  out  for  Charles.  The  whole  life  of  this 
stronghold  has  been  heroic,  stupendous  in  size, 
gallant  in  its  human  figures,  impressive  in  its 
human  sorrows,  indomitable  in  its  human  cour- 
age. Here,  and  in  the  other  castles  of  North 
Wales,  many  of  those  strange  prophecies  of 
Taliessin  have  been  fulfilled  or  in  part  fulfilled, 
something  at  least  of 

*'  All  the  angels'  words 
As  to  peace  and  war.'* 


THE    END 


Appendix 


APPENDIX 

Suggestions  for  Some  Tours ' 

At  the  junction  of  the  Llugwy  and  Conway  val- 
leys, embowered  in  trees,  cut  by  rushing  streams,  sur- 
rounded by  mountains,  among  them  Siabod,  the  Gly- 
ders,  and  some  of  the  lesser  hills  of  Snowdonia,  is 
Bettws-y-Coed,  one  of  the  most  beautiful  and,  be  it 
said,  the  most  comfortable  villages  in  all  North  Wales. 
There  are  good  inns,  good  lodgings,  excellent  train- 
service,  coaches, —  all  that  mankind  in  a  holiday  hu- 
mour can  desire.  This  little  "  chapel  in  the  woods  " 
is  a  place  rich  in  beautiful  legend,  near  the  sea,  in  the 
midst  of  mountains,  for  the  sportsman  blessed  with 
good  fishing  and  good  hunting.  Artists  go  there,  and 
where  artists  go,  others  can  afford  to  follow.  The 
Lledr  Valley,  which  meets  the  Conway  just  outside 
of  Bettws,  Ruskin  called  the  most  beautiful  valley  in 
the  world.  At  Bettws-y-Coed,  I  think,  are  as  fine 
headquarters  as  any  in  North  Wales  for  a  series  of 
tours.  The  Waterloo  Hotel,  the  Royal  Oak,  the 
Gwydir  are  all  good  hotels,  well  run,  sanitary,  and 
with  excellent  food.    In  Bettws,  too,  there  is  a  first- 

'  Buy  anywhere  you  happen  to  be  in  Wales,  The  Gossips 
ing  Guide  to  Wales ;  its  maps,  big  and  small,  and  its  text 
answer  all  questions.    Price,  one  shilling. 

[  179  ] 


Appendix 


rate  garage  from  which  you  can  get  good  cars  at  any 
time. 

Repeated  experience  of  life  in  North  Wales  in  its 
most  isolated,  tiny  hamlets,  where  the  tourist  had  never 
been  before  and  where  it  was  impossible  to  secure 
lodgmg ;  experience  in  the  small  towns  like  Conway 
and  Carnarvon,  full  of  association,  quiet  and  yet  pro- 
sperous ;  and  experience  in  the  larger  centres  of  Welsh 
life,  have  given  me  a  perspective  which  is,  perhaps, 
uncommon.  The  great  advantage  of  Bettws  is  that 
you  can  not  only  get  everywhere  from  that  delightful 
place,  but  that  you  can  also  be  most  comfortable  at  a 
reasonable  rate. 

If  you  are  touring  in  an  automobile  you  will  find 
each  one  of  the  tours  which  I  suggest  food  merely  for 
a  day  of  comfortable  delight.  If  you  are  walking,  or 
driving,  these  tours  can  be  broken  up  and  shortened 
or  extended  indefinitely. 

For  the  First  Day  go  up  the  Vale  of  Conway, 
stopping  at  Trefriw.  On  your  way  to  Trefriw,  you 
will  pass  through  Llanrwst,  which,  dear  old  market- 
town  that  it  is,  will  for  liveliness  on  a  market-day 
suggest  Piccadilly  rather  than  a  little  Welsh  town. 
There  from  miles  around  —  and  if  you  wish  to  see  a 
Welsh  market  you  cannot  do  better  than  to  go  to 
Llanrwst,  for  during  centuries  it  has  had  a  great  repu- 
tation as  a  place  of  barter  —  there  from  miles  around, 
the  Welsh  peasants  gather,  and  there  you  will  see 

[  i8o] 


Appendix 

Welsh  household  articles  which  you  could  not  find  in 
any  shop.  There  is  much  in  Llanrwst  worth  taking 
a  glimpse  at,  the  old  bridge  built  by  Inigo  Jones 
which  would  be  enough  to  send  a  well-regulated  motor 
car  to  the  madhouse,  but  from  the  artist  point  of  view 
is  still  useful ;  the  little  cottage  by  the  bridge,  Gwydir 
Castle  just  beyond  the  cottage,  not  a  tumble-down 
castle  either,  but  resplendent  with  gorgeously  carved 
furniture  and  Spanish-leather-covered  walls  and  relics 
too  many  and  too  old  to  enumerate. 

But  on  to  Trefriw  and  from  Trefriw  climb  the 
hill  on  foot, —  it  is  only  a  short  hill, — to  see  Llan- 
rhychwyn  Church,  a  double-aisled  church  of  the  most 
primitive  simplicity,  where  Prince  Llewelyn  used  in 
tumultuous  days  to  worship.  One  aisle  is  consider- 
ably older  than  the  other,  dating,  as  its  architecture, 
the  details  of  its  rafters,  the  windows  and  doors  show, 
perhaps  back  as  far  as  the  eighth  century,  surely  the 
ninth.  And  now  to  Conway,  stopping  by  the  way  at 
Caerhun  for  just  a  glimpse  of  the  old  church  there  and 
a  long  enough  time  to  realize  that  you  are  standing  on 
the  foundations  of  what  was  once  the  ancient  Roman 
city  of  Canovium.  Do  not  stay  there  so  long  that  you 
will  not  have  time  to  turn  on  a  road  just  about  a  mile 
and  a  half  outside  of  Conway  that  leads  up  the  hill  to 
Llangelynin  Church,  also  one  of  the  oldest  founda- 
tions in  all  Great  Britain,  a  poor,  stricken,  old  place 
tended  by  a  woman  scarcely  strong  enough  to  creep 
around,  apart  from  any  village  or  any  cottages,  remote, 
[  i8i  ] 


Appendix 


pathetic  in  its  semi-decay,  and  containing  still  the  old 
pulpit,  some  of  the  old  glass,  and  a  leper's  window 
through  which  lepers  used  in  the  Middle  Ages  to  re- 
ceive the  sacrament  and  to  listen  to  the  services. 

And  now  you  are  almost  within  the  harp-shaped 
castle  walls  of  Conway  itself  —  old  Conway  with  its 
cobbled  streets,  its  beautiful  Plas  Mawr,  its  ancient 
hostelries,  its  massive  castle  with  the  oratory  of  Queen 
Eleanor  still  looking  out  upon  the  sea,  and  —  treasure 
not  to  be  despised —  near  the  castle  the  tiniest  cottage 
in  all  Great  Britain.  There  are  good  hotels  in  Con- 
way where  an  excellent  luncheon  or  dinner  may  be 
found,  and  if  there  is  time  for  sight-seeing,  perhaps 
the  best  thing  to  do  would  be  to  buy  one  of  Abel 
Heywood's  penny  guides,  for  in  these  penny  guides  is 
found  a  wealth  of  reliable  information.  Enough,  this, 
for  one  day's  joy,  and  I  have  discovered  for  you  what 
no  guide-book  would  do  —  two,  and  perhaps  three,  of 
the  sweetest  old  churches  of  primitive  Wales. 

Leaving  Bettws-y-Coed  on  the  Second  Day,  you 
will  go  through  Capel  Curig,  stopping  on  the  way  for 
a  glimpse  of  the  Swallow  Falls.  Now,  down  through 
the  valley  past  Llyn  Ogwen,  from  which  you  can 
visit,  if  you  wish,  the  Devil's  Kitchen  or  Twll  Ddu, 
the  "  black  hole,"  as  the  Welsh  call  it,  where,  every 
year,  foolish  young  collegians  lose  their  lives  in  scal- 
ing the  walls.  In  its  lack  of  verdure,  in  its  stupendous 
rocky  mountain  summits,  in  its  gigantic  boulders  of 

[  182  ] 


Appendix 

stone  thrown  hither  and  yon,  this  valley  is  a  veritable 
valley  of  the  shadow  of  death,  gray,  desolate,  rock- 
strewn.  You  will  pass  through  Bethesda  on  your  way 
to  Bangor,  seeing,  as  you  go  along,  hillsides  covered 
with  rubbish  from  slate  quarries.  And  now  to  Bangor, 
where  Dr.  Samuel  Johnson  over  one  hundred  years 
ago  found  the  inn,  together  with  a  great  deal  else  in 
Wales,  **  very  mean."  Although  the  good  Doctor  was 
tremendously  interested  in  his  food,  despite  the  very 
meanness  of  the  inns,  he  found  Bangor,  its  Beaumaris 
Castle,  and  its  cathedral,  interesting.  But  they  have 
changed  the  "  meanness  "  of  their  inns  now,  for  this 
Welsh  town  has  become  a  university  town  and  you 
will  find  good  food  and  good  inns. 

Only  a  few  miles  beyond  is  Carnarvon,  —  that  old 
town  which  North  Walians  claim  as  the  most  inter- 
esting of  all  their  towns,  —  and  Carnarvon  Castle,  in 
the  words  of  Pennant,  "  the  most  magnificent  badge  of 
our  subjection  to  the  English."  There  in  Carnarvon 
the  investitures  of  the  Princes  of  Wales  have  taken 
place.  Carnarvon  Castle  is,  with  the  exception  of 
Alnwick,  the  finest  of  all  Great  Britain  and  possessed 
of  the  romantic  grace — its  casements  looking  out  upon 
the  sea  and  the  dim  romantic  shores  of  Anglesey  and 
its  towers  back  upon  the  rocky  sides  of  Snowdon  — 
of  any  European  castle.  Within  the  walls  of  this 
castle,  begun  by  Edward  I  and  completed  by  his  son, 
the  first  English  Prince  of  Wales,  ahd  within  the  walls 
of  the  town,  —  for  Carnarvon  is  a  city  of  the  early 

■    [  183  ] 


Appendix 


Middle  Ages  founded  upon  the  ancient  city  of  the 
Romans  called  Segontium,  —  many  hours,  even  days, 
might  be  spent. 

Homewards  now  to  Bettws  through  Llanberis,  up 
the  long,  beautifully  graded  road  to  Pen-y-Pass  (which 
means  simply  the  head  of  the  pass),  where  you  will 
find  an  inn  for  mountaineers  in  whose  attractive  dining- 
room  you  can  have  delicious  tea  and  a  view  unrivalled 
in  all  North  Wales.  From  Pen-y-Pass  one  of  the  easiest 
ascents  of  Snowdon  can  be  made,  and,  with  Bettws  as 
a  centre,  it  would  be  a  very  simple  thing  to  run  down 
to  Pen-y-Pass  for  an  ascent.  You  are  within  a  few 
miles  of  Bettws  now  and  will  reach  there  in  time  for 
supper  or  dinner  at  seven  o'clock. 

On  the  Third  Day  go  through  Capel  Curig  again, 
turning  at  Pen-y-Gwryd,  —  where  Charles  Kingsley, 
the  novelist,  and  Tom  Hood  spent  so  many  happy 
days  and  where  there  is  an  excellent  inn,  —  to  go  to 
Beddgelert.  You  will  run  down  one  of  the  most  beauti- 
ful roads  in  Great  Britain,  wide,  smooth,  with  all  Snow- 
don ia  at  your  right-hand  side,  and  on  the  left,  moun- 
tains that  roll  away  towards  the  jagged  summit  of 
Cynicht;  down  past  beautiful  Lake  Gwynant;  past 
beautiful  country  places;  past  Dinas  Lake  where  a 
remarkable  creature  of  mythological  times  is  supposed 
to  have  lived  —  fairy  tale  seems  to  have  made  a  sort  of 
crocodile  out  of  what  was  probably  a  beaver ;  —  past 
Dinas  Emrys,  on  which  there  are  still  remains  of  a 

[  184  ] 


Appendix 


Roman  stronghold  and  where  the  magician  Merlin 
Ambrosius  worked  many  a  spell  and  Arthur  has  often 
been ;  still  on,  past  Aran,  a  mountain  only  less  high 
than  Snowdon,  from  whose  side  leaps  a  little  water- 
fall ;  along  a  road  with  a  turbulent  Welsh  river  on  one 
side  and  fawn-like,  mottled  beach  trees  on  the  other ; 
now  on  to  the  outskirts  of  the  village,  where  one  be- 
gins to  see  signboards  announcing  lodgings,  and  finally, 
into  the  village  of  Beddgelert,  set  sheltered  and  sur- 
rounded in  its  cup  of  mountains,  and  where,  if  you 
have  a  heart  for  legend,  you  may  see  a  dog's  grave 
and  believe  the  beautiful  old  tale ;  and  where,  if  you 
have  an  eye  for  beauty,  you  may  have  your  eyes  filled 
—  eat  your  cake,  indeed,  and  take  some  of  it  away 
with  you  ; — and  where,  if  you  have  a  mind  to  rest, 
you  may  stay  on  indefinitely,  finding  each  day  more 
peaceful  and  more  lovely  than  the  last  in  that  little 
mountain-cupped  village,  with  the  sound  of  its  running 
rivers  and  its  tumbling  mountain  streams  and  the  day- 
long cawing  of  its  rooks.  If  you  want  a  welcome  from 
some  one  who  loves  Americans  and  who  will  do  all 
that  she  can  for  them,  you  could  not  do  better  than 
go  to  Mrs.  Howell  Griffith  Powell,  who  will  give  you 
excellent  simple  food  and,  if  it  is  a  cold  day  or  you 
happen  merely  to  want  it  as  an  added  pleasure,  an 
open  fire.  There  are  good  hotels  there,  too,  the  Royal 
Goat  Hotel  and  the  Prince  Llewelyn. 

Then  in  the  afternoon  you  will  go  on  down  through 
Aberglaslyn  Pass.   Perhaps  you  will  stand  on  the  old 

[  185  ] 


Appendix 

bridge  for  a  few  minutes  and  read  or  listen  to  the  story 
of  how  the  Devil  —  always  a  singularly  active  figure  in 
Wales  and  the  Welsh  imagination  —  tried  to  get  an 
unjust  toll  for  the  building  of  that  bridge  and  was  out- 
witted. The  Welsh  mind  —  and  the  revival  is  a  point 
in  proof —  takes  a  singular  delight  in  outwitting  the 
DcviL  Now,  on  to  Tremadoc,  where  on  the  right- 
hand  side  of  the  road  you  will  see  the  house  in  which 
Shelley,  the  poet,  lived  for  a  year  with  poor  unhappy 
Harriet.  From  Portmadoc  you  can  take  a  short  detour 
to  Harlech  and  its  castle,  a  tremendous  old  pile  of  a 
fortress,  scarcely  beautiful,  but  very  impressive  as  it 
stands  upon  its  vast  rock  looking  out  over  the  sea  and 
the  mountains,  and  down  over  the  little  cottages  shel- 
tered at  its  foot.  As  you  look  across  the  sea,  you  are 
gazing  upon  the  land  where  King  Mark  is  supposed 
to  have  had  his  palace  and  upon  Criccieth,  where  you 
may  still  see  an  old  stub  of  a  castle.  Perhaps  you  will 
be  even  more  interested  to  know  that  Lloyd  George 
has  his  summer  home  in  Criccieth,  and  that  not  far 
from  Harlech,  Bernard  Shaw  has  spent  a  good  deal  of 
his  time  preparing  his  next  delightfully  wicked  laugh 
at  the  expense  of  himself  and  mankind.  Just  opposite 
Harlech  Castle  is  a  good  inn  where  one  can  get  an 
ample  dinner  or  luncheon  or  tea ;  and  a  car  or  one's 
walking-traps  may  be  left. 

Retracing  a  few  miles   from   Harlech,  follow  the 
road  through  the  beautiful  Vale  of  Maentwrog.   It  was 
in  the  Vale  of  Maentwrog  that  Lord  Lyttleton  said, 
[  186] 


Appendix 

"  One  might  with  the  woman  one  loves  pass  an  age 
in  this  vale  and  think  it  but  a  day."  Up  through  this 
wonderful  vale  you  will  see  a  tiny  narrow-gauge  rail- 
way making  its  way.  Sharp  is  the  contrast  between 
the  country  at  Festiniog,  from  which  one  looks  down 
upon  the  Vale  of  Maentwrog,  and  the  country  about 
Blaenau  Festiniog,  which  is  the  next  town  beyond. 
Blaenau  Festiniog — high  up  on  the  mountain  side, 
with  the  peaks  of  gray  rock  summits  towering  high 
above  the  village  and  rocks  everywhere  coming  down 
to  the  backs  of  the  houses,  miles  of  slate  rubbish  within 
sight  of  every  street  in  the  village  —  has  for  its  proud 
boast  the  fact  that  it  contains  the  largest  slate  quar- 
ries in  the  world.  Here  are  quarried  the  beautiful 
blue  slates  of  which  Wales  is  proud,  and  which,  alas, 
the  cheaper  French  slates  have  been  driving  out  of 
the  market.  It  is  well  worth  the  trouble  to  climb  the 
quarry  steps  up  the  Oakeley  Quarry.  Then  on  through 
the  Lledr  Valley,  with  every  turn  of  the  road  near  the 
Lledr  River,  through  plantations  of  pines,  past  little 
houses,  down  this  beautifully  graded  road  until  the 
Lledr  River  joins  the  Conway,  past  the  Fairy  Glen, 
and  so  home  once  more  to  Bettws. 

A  Fourth  Day  should  be  spent  in  a  more  fertile 
part  of  the  country  following  the  Cerrig-y-Druidion 
road  through  to  Corwen.  A  few  miles  farther  on, 
along  the  river  Dee,  one  comes  to  Llangollen,  a  sweet 
old  town,  where  lived  those  two  dear,  high-spirited, 

[  187  ] 


Appendix 

quaint  old  ladies  of  Llangollen ;  where  there  are  ex- 
cellent inns  in  a  fertile  valley,  good  shops,  a  town 
Welsh  to  its  finger  tips,  and  an  old  abbey  called  Valle 
Crucis.  One  hears  so  much  of  Tintern  Abbey  on  its 
southern  English  river,  yet  there  is  something  about 
Valle  Crucis  which  I  think  is  no  less  lovely.  More  of 
a  ruin  it  is,  and  in  some  ways  more  of  a  treasure.  On 
the  whole,  it  has  fallen  into  greater  dilapidation,  but 
there  are  parts  of  it  from  which  one  can  read  much 
of  a  life  that  is  past.  There  is  a  charming  old  chapter 
house  almost  intact ;  a  delightful  old  fishpond  from 
which  the  monks,  who  had  an  eye  for  what  was  good 
to  eat,  took  their  carp  ;  and  there  are  such  graceful 
Norman  chimneys  and  fireplaces  as  I  do  not  remem- 
ber having  seen  any  place  else  ;  and  there,  too,  the  old 
blind  rector  shows  one  the  things  which  he  cannot 
see  any  more,  saying  over  and  over  as  he  guides  one 
around,  "I  never  destroy  anything  that  is  old."  The 
restoration  of  this  abbey  is  his  work,  his  life,  and  be- 
fore his  sight  went  he  had  put  into  print  such  records 
of  its  past  life  that  he  had  identified  himself  with  its 
history  for  all  time  to  come.  Americans  he  loves,  too, 
and  you  will  give  as  well  as  get  pleasure. 

In  conclusion,  a  few  general  suggestions.  You 
would  find  it  amply  worth  your  while  to  motor  over 
to  Bala,  or,  if  you  are  not  motoring,  to  take  the  train 
over  there.  The  lake  is  beautiful,  accommodations 
are  good,  and  one  can,  from  Bala  as  a  centre,  make 
[  i88  ] 


Appendix 

several  short  and  most  interesting  trips :  —  one  to 
Dolgelly,  where  Tennyson  spent  so  many  of  his  vaca- 
tions ;  another  up  to  the  quaint  little  town  of  Ruthin 
in  which  Dr.  Johnson  and  Mrs.  Piozzi  (Mrs.  Thrale) 
spent  some  little  time  and  of  which  Mrs.  Piozzi  tells 
the  charming  story  which  I  have  repeated  elsewhere. 
She  was  discussing  with  the  caretaker  of  one  of  the 
little  churches  in  the  possession  of  the  Thrale  family 
her  plans  for  her  journey  and  mentioned  that  she  was 
going  to  Ruthin.  "  Ruthin,  mum,"  he  said,  "my  wife 
came  from  Ruthin,  and  when  she  died  I  made  up  my 
mind  I  'd  go  with  the  body  to  Ruthin,  for  I  thought 
I  would  find  it  a  pleasant  journey,  and  indeed,  mum, 
I  found  it  a  very  pleasant  journey." 


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